Keeping Your Enemies Close…

The discussion over whether or not Obama should be trusting the recommendations of Timothy Geithner makes me think about the previous Administration’s trust of its “experts.”

Donald Rumsfeld served as Secretary of Defense during the period that saw the United States nearly lose the initiative in Iraq and is firmly to blame for allowing Afghanistan to rot on the back-burner.

I’ll be blunt: Americans died because of the ineptitude of Donald Rumsfeld.  Why would he, of all people, have even been looked to for expert policy enactment?  Well, it was because he was leading the administration into a “new” military mission-plan: privatize everything we can, while maintaining a technological edge over the opposition.  He wasn’t putting into place a military to build countries or fight prolonged wars, but one made of quick strike packages that could hit anywhere at any time.

Rumsfled was, essentially, a corporate hack that was going to turn the U.S. military into a profitable enterprise.  Private companies would be more “efficient.”  Our foreign policy would be about being able to threaten anyone anywhere with outrageously superior weapons technology.  Seems pretty empirical, if you ask me.  But that’s been the neo-conservative sense of American exceptionalism that makes “by any means necessary” acceptable.

In the end, this proved to be an untenable plan of action.  Guerilla warfare is designed to bog down Rumsfled’s military dream and corporatizing the military has led to the death American soldiers as companies race for a bottom line to make a profit off of war. It has been a disaster and it resulted by allowing a politically-connected man in a suit make decisions like a businessman and not a public servant.  Big Business doesn’t care about people unless it serves the bottom line.

Now the question to ask is whether Tim Geithner is an expert cut from the same clothe of a financial industry that is robbing us blind and trying to pretend that none of this economic crisis is their fault.  They are a big part of the problem, so why should we be taking cues from a guy that CAME FROM that group of offenders?

I honestly don’t know if Geithner is on the level as far as his sense of accountability to the financial lobby…I would not want to accuse anyone of being purposefully corrupted.  Rumsfeld wasn’t corrupt, he was stupid.  He really thought his ideas would work.  Unfortunately, he was mired in the wrong-headed mindset that thought you could run a country like a corporation.

We need to know if Geithner is thinking outside the “box” that he has worked in for his entire career.  If his expertise derives from the same kinds of beliefs that led us into this crisis, he is the last person that should be Secretary of the Treasury.

The F-22: Pride & Procurement

Congress passed a new defense bill that cancels the much-loved F-22 fighter program.  It’s much-loved by airplane enthusiasts (like me), defense contractors, a lot of people in the Air Force, and some members of congress.  Oh, and Michael Bay.  It’s not so much-loved by the Secretary of Defense, the President, and anyone who might have happened across this number from the Washington Post which outlines a whole slew of issues that have plagued the jet.

The NYT notes the remarkable event of a giant defense contract being defeated despite the money being doled out to 44 different states (making it a “creating jobs” perk for politicians).  It’s remarkable because, as with many industries, money talks in politics and the taxpayer is usually stuck with the bill.

Now, I’ll admit that I like flashy things that blow shit up as much as the next guy, so I’m a little saddened by the news.  And some of the claims in the Wa-Po article leave me a little skeptical (like how the plane’s exterior is “vulnerable to rain,” which is a pretty ridiculous shortcoming; there is probably more to it than that).  But in short, the program is dead and ultimately it’s a good thing.

Really, it’s just money we don’t need to spend.  There are a lot of other things that the military can use more readily, and they’re still going to be building the F-35 JSF for our military’s fighter-jet needs.  Building F-22’s is kinda like driving an H-2: it’s more car than you need, it cost s more than it’s worth, and honestly, you look like a prick driving it.

So, here’s to the end of the F-22 program.  Don’t think as the death of an airplane…but as the metaphorical laying of a flower upon the grave of the Cold War.

How Democracy Works

This is in response to a civil exchange that I’ve been having with a commenter, whom I appreciate taking the time to state his views.  Or her views.  I’m actually not sure, since this is the internet.

The debate has been about the “Tea Party” protesters.  I’ve made the allegation that these are a bunch of hypocritical, racist, mostly white folks who are angry that they lost the election to a black guy.  That’s not true.  Some of them just believe that our government has taken too much license to dictate things in our lives.  Our “freedom” is what is at stake.

I can actually answer that concern, unlike those who will call our President illegitimate and a Nazi.  Those people ought to just be ridiculed.

Those who believe that the best government is a small government have a different view of governance than many Americans.  You know the type.  They want to see the true conservatism that was promised to them over the last 30 years.  Smaller government, lower federal spending, lower taxes, free markets, etc.  The problem, however, is that they only got some of what they wanted.

Government spending can’t go down, not unless you want to disband the military and get rid of social security.  Conservatives have tried, and failed, because Americans want those things.  We would also like to be protected against corporate thuggery, have a certain standard of living, police, roads, all kinds of stuff.  That isn’t free.  But you wanted lower taxes, so you got deficit spending.

In short, conservatives (and their libertarian cousins) didn’t get everything that they wanted, and they still want the whole package.  Problem is, the majority of Americans don’t agree.  They want their government to do stuff, and in times like now (when the economy sucks and private business isn’t coming to the rescue) they look to politicians.  Everybody wants a bailout, and yet no one wants to pay for it.

Well, Obama was elected to do something.  The Tea Party folks think that he is another one of the greedy anti-freedom lovers that is out to expand government and pursue a radical agenda.  It is radical…if you actually think that these Tea Party people represent mainstream America.

Newsflash: they don’t.  Why have their protests been hyped up only to fitter out after a few days?  It’s because no one really cares.  Most Americans aren’t worried about their “freedom.”  They’re worried about losing their job, or their home, or their health insurance.  They want the government to do something about it since, apparently, no one else is.  Obama’s proposals and the actual policies that he has pursued are liberal, but they are incredibly moderate.  You want radical: think a SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE SYSTEM.  Think complete withdrawal from our overseas deployments.  Think aggressive tax-hikes all across the board to balance the budget.  Think nationalization of the banks and trust-busting to break the financial companies into smaller portions.

Now that’s radical.  And nothing like what’s been proposed.  We haven’t even closed Gitmo yet and no one likes that place except Dick Cheney.  If anything, liberals are pissed that the President hasn’t been liberal enough.  He hasn’t been that radical because he is mindful of people on the Tea Party side of the debate.

And you know what?  He doesn’t have to be.  He won in a landslide and his party controls the legislature (like, by a LOT).  The way elections work in this country, in theory, is that you pick the people you want to represent your views and the winner gets to make the rules.  The Tea Partiers lost the election, not to a system that is too tainted to be accountable to the “people,” but to an American public that is more left-leaning than them.  The majority of Americans want to see these “radical” policies, and in a democracy majority rules.

Even then, though, Obama and the rest of the Democrats are paying mind to the conservative base.  They aren’t even pushing a public option for healthcare, something the vast majority of Americans support.  Our government is actually dialing back on the liberal mandate they got from the 2008 election and still, STILL, conservative-minded individuals aren’t satisfied.

Well, you know what?  That’s too damn bad.  Because liberals really aren’t trying to take away your freedoms, no matter what ridiculous accusations you throw at us.  In America, you have the right to believe whatever you want.  The Tea Party people and the other Democrat-hating, government loathing, free-market champions are entitled to believe what they will, but the rest of the nation does not have to cater to their minority view.  You can’t have it both ways and the American people have decided which way they want to go.

What’s beautiful is that in the next election you’ll have another chance to change our minds.  Until then, you’re protests will fall on deaf ears.

Politics of Peace (Prize)

A lot of people hear that President Obama has received the Nobel Peace Prize and wonder what he has done to deserve it.

That includes the President himself.

I’d recommend people watch his short speech in response to the news.  It’s online, once again it’s short, and in it he states clearly that he did not seek this and he feels undeserving.  So, he makes the reward about international cooperation and shares it with everyone working to make the world a better place, and blah blah blah, hopeful gushy stuff.

In short, it’s got nothing to do with him or his ego, so the right-wingers bitching and moaning are just mad that they didn’t get one.

Why exactly did Obama get one, though?  In short: he’s not George W. Bush.

People around the world have an immense trust for Barack Obama, more than the citizens of his own country, and they are looking for him to lead the world through all this craziness.  We Americans are a bit cynical, but this award is about hope.  Hope that we can undo the damage done by the previous administration.

The Nobel committee is playing politics, and it always has.  The goal is to move the conversation.  In this case, they are expressing hope that Obama will carry out on his promise to do a better job than the last guy at pursuing peace.  What they’d really love to see, no doubt, is an end to the war in Afghanistan.

Americans shouldn’t be opposed to having the world community looking to us for leadership.  What we might have, in a way, is a reset back to the days after 9/11 when the world felt sympathy for our nation and stood ready to work with us.  Bush screwed all of that up by pursuing an a belligerent “America-first” agenda that wound up getting more people killed than it saved (in other countries, which is why conservatives have the audacity to say he kept “us” safe).

President Obama has a chance to do some real work in the positive direction internationally, and the groundwork being laid is looking good, despite what the naysayers may allege.  Republicans will look wherever they can to provoke failure or the illusion of it, but they honestly can be ignored.  The rest of the Democratic leadership needs to be pushed into following the man who Americans elected, and the world now expects, to lead.

The Peace Prize is a gesture towards the future we can create if we are brave enough to try; it embodies what I like to think of as the politics of the possible.

Yes, Race Probably Has Something to do With it

All the tea-baggers who “want their country back” confuse and irritate me.

What, exactly, do you want back?

In fact, much to the disdain of the left-wing, things haven’t actually changed all that much.  Little things have changed, but overall…same government infrastructure.  The bank bailout was a Bush move that Obama had to finish.  The stimulus was a “socialist” move, that is true, but that was deficit spending that aimed at helping our own country…you know, instead of Iraq.  At least Obama put all that spending into the budget, unlike the last guy, who made it seem like he’d forgotten that we were still occupying two entire fucking countries.

So really, the government is doing all the same shit that it always has, but NOW these folks are pissed off?  I’m not the only one who is a little curious why suddenly conservatives are worried about government spending, and who is amazed at the balls necessary to throw out that kind of hypocrisy without even blinking.

Given that, it’s not a stretch to think that the one clearly different thing that we have going for us now might be a part of these peoples’ problem: we’ve now got a black guy running the show.  An articulate, good-looking, family-oriented black guy, too, which is the most terrifying kind.  God forbid we don’t have the complete opposite of that continuing to be an established stereotype.

These obnoxious tea-baggers want to go back to a time when minorities knew their place, so they wouldn’t have to say anything and risk being called a racist outright.  Now that the White House is not the “White’s-Only House” they think the world is going to hell.

And it seems to be, which is what they want anyway, since a lot of these are the same people who are preparing for the Rapture.  The idea that this country might actually be a “liberal” place frightens them, and this has always been the case.  We are a progressive society.  These changes happen and it scares people, especially those who aren’t all that “there” to begin with.  If we aren’t all Christians, white, straight and wealthy, then we clearly aren’t Americans.  If that’s the case, then by all means, secede.  See if I give a shit.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for certain media outlets drumming up this insanity, and since the economy is going to shit people are even more agitated than usual.  It’s disgusting that we can’t act like adults, and it’s especially disgusting that I’m one of the voices calling for sanity.  I’m barely out of adolescence and I have to tell these people to grow up?

Maybe we really are fucked.

There Will Be Blood

Nancy Pelosi addressed the issue of politically motivated violence yesterday…and it’s a fair warning.

I wasn’t alive to see Kennedy assassinated.  Or Martin Luther King Jr.  Or, as the Madam Speaker was referring to in her press conference, the deaths of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.  But these people, among others, were murdered out of politically motivated hatred.

This has happened before and it will continue to happen if the right-wing keeps egging on people to bear arms against the government as a show of solidarity against “government intrusion” into our lives.

This is ridiculous.  We have institutions in place to protect people from government persecution…the government is there to protect you from persecution from other people.  If anyone doubts that the level of hostility being raised lately is not becoming dangerous, just wait.

Wait and find out just how far politicians and other interest groups are willing to allow this kind of hostility to go before saying enough is enough.  They think that moderates and progressives will be cowed into submission by their base waving their guns.  It won’t work.  Universal health coverage, along with all the other “liberal” agenda items, will be pursued.  And wealthy special interests will use citizen outrage as a political tool.

It’s sad, but seemingly inevitable, that someone will get hurt in all of this.  But as far as I’m concerned, the right-wingers calling for the overthrow of the government are the equivalent of domestic terrorists.  They do not have the right to use violence against anyone, and if they do, they will only be incriminating themselves further.

I am not scared of these people.  What I am scared of is someone I care about becoming a victim of these deranged activists.  I pray that sanity will return to the Republican leadership before something terrible happens, but I am not hopeful.  I’d prefer that no one be hurt, but I’d rather be gunned down by one of these lunatics than capitulate to their extremism.

That’s how you fight terrorism; by not being afraid.

“Right” to be Scared

Consider the following: Democrats (and liberals in general) are being likened to Nazis, racial tensions are being stirred, secession is being floated as a good idea, concerned citizens think Obama wants to have “Death Panels”, he might not even BE an American, and protesters are bringing guns to rallies and others are just bringing guns for the sake of having a gun…where the President happens to be speaking.

Also given that an abortion doctor was murdered a little while back (and is being heralded by extremists as a hero) would anyone be surprised if the authorities happen to be taking notice of this?

There are a lot of angry conservatives out there, and not just extremists.  The fact is, however, that there are people expressly advocating the overthrow of our government mixed into this right-wing backlash.  This could just be written off as crazy free speech…or it could be taken seriously.

I bring this up given the fact that conservatives weren’t opposed to the broad powers given to the President so that he would be able to “protect the American people.”  George Bush Jr. was able to spy on, wiretap, detain, and even torture to an unprecedented degree.  The biggest supporting voice for those policies even now?  Dick Cheney.

So, I have to wonder: if these right-wing extremists are threatening violence and what could be fairly described as domestic terrorism, wouldn’t the President be obligated to deal with this potential threat as directly as possible?

The accusation that Obama might use his office as a way to target conservatives has already been levied.  What’s to say that they’re wrong?  If liberals were worried about Bush targeting them as political enemies what’s to stop Obama from doing the same?

Perhaps this is where so much of the outrage is coming from.  Conservatives were fine with one of their own holding so much executive authority, but when the left takes over we’re obviously now going to be consumed by Commie-Nazis who want to raise our taxes and abort our babies.

Why else would the right be raising hell about policies they supported themselves as recently as a few months ago?

NOW they worry about government spending.  NOW they’re worried about a balanced budget.  NOW they’re worried about the President having too much power.

Look, I’m as much concerned about government overreach as anyone.  I don’t want conservatives being catalogued and subjected to persecution any more than liberals.  No one should have to live in fear.  But these “Death-ers” are worked up about something that is even more ridiculous than the idea that 9/11 was staged by the Bush administration.

Reality-check, people: Bush was the one that asked for and received all that power.  It seems like all the excesses of government (the “activism” of judges, the “staying out of our lives”, the “lower government spending”) didn’t matter so much when it was the right-wing running the show.

All I would like is a little consistency.  The right is against health care reform because it’ll cost too much.  Let me just ask then, how much has the Iraq war cost us?  If the right got the opportunity to piss away billions on a stupid war, I think it’s only fair that liberals get the chance to give Americans comprehensive health coverage; at least that tries to save lives without having to kill people first (despite what the right-wing mouthpieces say).  You don’t have to like it, but hey, I didn’t like the war and it happened anyway.

The point is that the bunch in charge today won’t necessarily always be in charge.  So it doesn’t do any good to give the President a lot of power trusting that he’ll use it appropriately.  Even if he does, that doesn’t guard against his successor.  It’s like buying a machine-gun as protection from your neighbors, but you switch off manning the thing with those same neighbors.

Times have changed and priorities have shifted.  Conservatives need to abandon this extremism and stop fearing the left.  We are not trying to kill you or make you do anything you didn’t have to already do anyway.  I have to pay my taxes same as you, so quit complaining.  If what the Democrats choose to do doesn’t work, you’ll have the opportunity to vote for your own guy.  I might even join you.

Until then you’ll have to do what we did for the last eight years: sit back and pray things don’t fall apart.

Is the Debate Reaching a Crescendo?

…Another crazy twist in the debate over health care.  You ready?

I heard over the weekend, as everyone else did, that the “public option” in the health care bill was being taken off the table.  At least, that’s what the media was throwing around based off what certain Democratic Senators were saying (namely, that there weren’t enough votes in the Senate to approve of it).  Then, judging by the language coming out of the White House, it seemed that the President, too, was not so set on the public option despite having said so in the past.

BUT…this was just the interpretation that the media extracted.  After the hubbub from Monday’s “Public Option Dead” headline, the Dems in the House of Representatives are saying, “Uh, no, we’re not taking the public option off the table, are you retarded?”  The White House is saying that nothing has changed, and that they still prefer a public option.  Liberal groups are up in arms over the idea that a public option, already a compromise away from Single-Payer, was being scraped.

Here’s the pattern I see emerging out of this: every little talking point that can be latched onto in the press is being harangued by politicians and the media.  The “public option” issue is just like the “Death-Panel” thing, in that it’s one component of the reform proposal that is being used by conservatives as being a reason for not supporting it.  The reason, of course, is that a public option sounds “socialist” and we know that’s not America.

Now, there totally can be a discussion about the pro’s and con’s of the public option, but the President was attempting over the weekend to shift the focus of the discussion away from that particular detail.  It’s been easy for the right-wing to latch onto talking points criticizing particular items in the bill, and since Republicans aren’t going to vote for anything reforming healthcare anyway, the point is to get as many Democrats on board with the bill as possible.

The news that the “public option is dead” came out of an attempt by the White House to downplay the disagreement over that particular provision, as it seems Dem’s in the U.S. Senate are stonewalling the idea of challenging the insurance lobby.  Things are still being negotiated, and so what I think was diplomacy on the part of the President was seen as capitulation by the press.

What’s absurd is that the media (with the assistance of vocal and angling politicians) will make drama out of anything they can.  At least the public option is an actual policy, whereas the “death panels” were not.  The story that the public option is totally gone was way overblown, but it has a positive side effect: now the liberal base is looking to get active.

This might be what exactly we need: threaten Americans with the real chance that health care reform is not going to happen, and that millions will continue to be uninsured, thousands will lose their coverage, and more people will die in a busted system.  Fox is assuring us that nothing is wrong, and they along with the corporate interests are already claiming victory in the debate.  Facing this, people might actually take to the streets and demand action from their leaders.  Next year is an election, so if we don’t like what we see in Washington, we can throw them out.  Maybe the right has it right: let’s put the fear of God into them.  Only, instead of violence, we’ll threaten them with good old fashion democracy.

Obama to Conservatives: I Will Eat Your Babies

I think I see the angle the right-wing is going for in the current health-care debate: “The Dems are so untrustworthy and morally bankrupt that they will use the health care bill to institute government control over your entire life.”

Take the “Death Panel” scare story, for example.  All the bill says is that End-of-Life consultation (which is voluntary and does NOT include a provision for the government to decide to let you die, or even kill you) will be covered.  Living wills, “do-not-recessitate” requests, hospice care, making arrangements for all of that has been encouraged by the government for decades.  In fact, President Bush’s Prescription Drug Bill supported the EXACT same provision, which Republicans voted into law.

Why, then, all this bullshit about “Death Panels”?  Their argument isn’t that End of Life care is bad, but that if a government run by Democrats were to oversee this, you’re bound to have euthanasia put into practice…since that’s what liberals are all about, killing off the old and weak.  I remember that being one of the campaign slogans during the Democratic primaries:

“Yes we can…create an American Super-Race.”

They must have dropped it after Obama got the nomination.

Of course, liberals also want to hand out abortions like Halloween candy, so any funding for Planned Parenthood is railed against.  Gosh, it’d be terrible if our young, hormonally-charged children were exposed to ideas about safe-sex and contraceptives so that they wouldn’t NEED abortions in the first place, since that would only encourage them to have sex!  Right…scare kids with threats of STDs, pregnancy, and eternal damnation, that’s been working great for years.  I’m sure watching Megan Fox run in slow motion for 2-1/2 hours will make all those 12-year-olds immediately think of their love for Jesus.

What else have they got?  I suppose you then mix in the “Birthers” that think our President is really a Kenyan with the gun-nuts that think Obama is going to take away their beloved firearms, along with these people that seem to accuse everyone of being a Nazi.  Now you have yourself a town hall meeting!

It almost as if the right-wing media just stirs up the political dialogue to see what will stick, and they know they have a winner once someone jumps up and yells, “Nazi!”  Everyone’s a Nazi, or a communist, which seem to be used interchangeably even though there’s a BIG fucking difference.  But I digress.

Is this is just left over animosity from the election?…If so, I’m sorry, but there’s no point in being angry.  People voted, and you lost.  That’s how democracy works.  Now, by clinging to this insane notion that our legitimately elected government is somehow not, in fact, legitimate, the far right-fielders can refuse to admit defeat.  This isn’t a debate, this is a shouting match.

It doesn’t help that we also have fantastically distributed misinformation.  By now the real off-the-farm crazies are too far gone to pull back in.  I just wish the right-wing would stop encouraging them by entertaining these RIDICULOUS conspiracies.  It makes me miss the Moon Landing Hoax-ers, at least that was harmless.

The left-wing is not composed of closet fascists or secret plotters to take over white Americans’ freedoms and enslave them to black people (yes, “them”; I’m not technically “white”, at least that’s what I’m saying from now on, just in case).  No, this has nothing to do with Reparations, and Obama does not hate white people.  He’s half white-people, like me, and I don’t hate white people.  So please, stop freaking out.

Jesus, let’s get back onto the same page here.  This lack of intelligent discourse makes us look like a nation full of gullible morons that will swallow whatever tripe confirms our worst fears.  We can disagree without brandishing firearms.  That’s not, I’m pretty sure, what the second amendment was going for.

Or maybe it was…after all, there’s always that ever-so-slight chance that the Democrats really are trying to kill your family.  You can never be one hundred percent sure, can you?

The War on National Mental Health

I find it hard to swallow that there could really be people who don’t want to see everyone in this country have access to affordable healthcare.

Maybe it’s not that those who oppose health-care reform want to deny people the right to health care; that would be inhumane, and that’s not what America is, right?  We’d love to have everyone be able to get check-ups regularly, to not worry about an injury forcing the family into bankruptcy, or to be able to provide insurance to small businesses’ employees.  The problem is that none of that comes for free, government run or not.

The problem that we have today with health care isn’t about the coverage itself, or who pays for it, or who gets it and when.  The problem is that we can’t even have a rational discussion about it.  Town hall meetings are being inundated by angry mobs that are shutting down debate and screaming about provisions of the pending health care bill that don’t even exist.  Or, more accurately, they are parroting talking points that are mischaracterizations of actual provisions and comparing Democrats to Nazis.

Health care is important and there needs to be an adult discussion over the changes that Americans want to see.  It is not trivial who pays for it, or how much further in debt the country may go, or how the bureaucracy is arranged, or any other number of issues.  Those are details that all Americans need to discuss regardless of political leaning.

But right now the extreme right-wing is mobilizing a small but rowdy force of angry, misinformed people in the hopes of derailing the entire discussion.  The plan that congress is looking at is not a government-run, Medicare-killing, job destroying piece of pork-barrel spending that is dooming seniors to an early death.  These protests are being organized by giant PR firms based in Washington DC at the behest of the health insurance lobby to drum up a fraudulent popular movement.

The truth is that the vast majority of Americans want to see reform.  By inventing false indignation amongst a small (and brainwashed with misinformation) group of anti-Democrat activists, these lobbyists are planting the seed of doubt inside Americans and their political leadership in the desperate attempt to kill this legislation.

There is nothing “fascist” about universal health coverage; Europeans are fine with theirs, and they actually know from experience what fascism looks like.  Why can’t we have an intelligent debate about the details of this legislation with the goal of containing healthcare costs and expanding coverage?  Republicans are not offering up actual alternatives; they simply berate the efforts of the Democratic majority while allowing special interest groups and people like Rush Limbaugh to spread lies about the actual plan.  Democrats are not helping either by having “moderate” members of their ranks slow down the process and play politics with the conservative members of their constituencies.

What we need is political leadership, and that’s what the President has been trying to do by speaking directly to the public.  American citizens need to be informed, but there is a war going on all over the country to keep that information from spreading.  By crashing town-hall meetings and preventing Democratic representatives from talking to their voters, the democratic process is being impeded.  Industry leaders do not want to see the health care system change, and they are hiding behind the first amendment while voicing their opposition in such a way that makes it seem as if reforming healthcare equates to electing the Third Reich into power.  Fox News is becoming a pure propaganda outlet, and mainstream media outlets continue to give “birthers” air-time all while knowing how crazy it is to accuse our President of being a foreigner.

It’s insanity and mob rule, and reasonable people need to recognize this for what it is.  The Republican Party needs to follow the lead of John McCain and call upon their members to be civilized in their opposition.  We can’t even try to make progress on a clearly broken health care system if mob violence is allowed to take over the debate.  Congressmen and women are receiving death threats, having to be escorted by security to avoid being accosted, and are not being respected as legitimately elected officials.  Comparing them to Nazis isn’t a good idea either, as that subtly implies that violence against them may be justified.

There are lives at stake in the issue of health care reform.  Now, our very democracy is at stake if we don’t get these vitriolic outbursts of extremist anger under control.  This anger is being drummed up to protect wealthy private companies who profit off of the status quo, not out of real concern for the American people as a whole.

How far is this going to go?  Are pro-reformists going to back down to the threat of violence and legitimize this anti-democratic movement?  Or are we going to be forced to take to the streets ourselves and meet them head on?

God help us if we can’t overcome the politics of this debate before it becomes a rallying cry for nut-jobs everywhere to take action against our legitimate system of governance.  This is supposed to be about making health care more available to the public, not about one ideological camp being so angry with their minority status that they feel coercion is now an appropriate mode of discourse.

What the hell happened to this country?  And when are we going to get its sanity back?