My 10 year old daughter came home from school last week, and while she sat with me eating her after-school snack asked me;
“Is President Obama a racist?” she said.
“No, honey, where’d you hear that?” I said.
“Well, [so and so] said that in class to me today and I just wanted to know,” she said.
“Did the person tell you where they had heard such a thing, honey?” I asked.
“Yeah, [their] grandpa said it,” my daughter replied. “He heard it on TV.”
My daughter and I had a discussion on what is racism, its source in ignorance, and how it’s just plain wrong. We also talked about the TV and radio shows which spread intolerance and bigotry for profit and political gain. My daughter’s eyes glazed over a little, and I said;
“Thanks for letting me know what’s up with you! Go play with your friends!”
Well, I never thought it could happen but, there is obviously no lowest depth of putrid vile chicanery that the far right wing racists will go to block anything that President Obama is up to keep his promise of change in America. Now they’re indoctrinating racism into 10 year old school children.
The current chief perpetrators are Glenn Beck and the Fox Network.
Since Beck’s comment, there has been an effort to have Beck’s sponsors stop advertising on his show but, that’s not far enough for what these folks have done.
The Fox Network condones Glenn Beck’s racist statements with every day that Glenn Beck spews his vitriol and the boycott should be directed at all Fox advertisers until this filth is gone.
But, Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh jump into the fire, also! The folks that spread the filth of racism do not deserve our economic support. I will not buy products advertised on the Fox Network, or any network or show which advertises or runs Michelle Malkin or Rush Limbaugh (not that Rush is a problem, I don’t have erectile dysfunction, premature balding or a need to evade personal liability by incorporating in Nevada!).
Meanwhile, a current attempt by President Obama to have a teaching moment with students is attacked as “indoctrination in Obama’s socialist agenda.”
Let’s make this clear, there have been other Presidential addresses directly to students. The Presidents which have done this before are Ronald Reagan in 1981, George H.W. Bush in 1991, and George W. Bush in 2002. Each presented their personal political views on America and the direction the country should go in their speeches.
There is only one reason to go off the deep end against an innocuous address by President Obama for children to “work hard, stay in school and succeed,” it is racism. It is the racism upon which the Republican Party in America has thrived since the 1880’s.
Some 10 per cent of the electorate is still fussing and fuming over the 2008 election; still believing President Obama is a Muslim; still believing President Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii or the United States; still believing that healthcare reform will have “death panels’ and will “pull the plug on grandma;” still calls President Obama a “Marxist Communist” or a “socialist” who “pals around with terrorists,” who wants to take away all your stuff; and, still believes that it’s wrong for a person who is black to be President of the United States.
What’s wrong here is the right.
I guess I'm more even cynical yet. I never believed the big money interests would let true reform happen.
A constant chorus from those opposed to national health care is; "I don't want government healthcare, leave my Medicare alone!"
Why would anyone think that Medicare is anything other than a government run healthcare program? Because the far right has somehow posited it as such.
So, let's look at the facts:
The Republicans opposed Social Security in the 1930s, calling it "Communism" and "Socialism."
The Republicans opposed Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, calling it "Communism" and "Socialism."
The Republicans oppose a public option in 2009, calling it "Communism" and "Socialism."
Strike three! Yer out!
It is interesting also to note that people have been successfully sued for libel, defamation or slander when someone else called them a "Communist." Perhaps some might turn down the rhetoric, or face the consequences.
As for Social Security and Medicare, if we eliminate the income ceilings on the rich for paying taxes to support Social Security and Medicare, problem solved!
To gauge how easy it would be to enact real reform, consider this scenario: the best way to demonstrate our disaffection with the current system would be for everyone—EVERYONE—to drop their health care. Just cancel their policies and refuse to play.
Now if you can actually imagine that happening, then you can see a way toward this thing working.
Jay, consider: there are people right now saying "If this thing passes, my faith in the system will be severely damaged."
Remember this, is is much more difficult and time consuming to build than to demolish.
The previous administration focused much enery on ripping away decades of regulations that protected the corporations from the rotten fruits of their own short-sightedness.
Like vicious dogs that have slipped their collars, these corporations do not want to be restricted again, will do anything to maintain their current status. They are dangerous. I now fear that the the lies and rhetoric promoted by the corporations and there shill pundits are moving us closed to open conflict in the form of a civil war.
Mr Obama is working very hard within the current system to restore some sanity to government policy. HE may put forth his ideas to the legislature and the public, but without the support in the legislature, such plans are worthless.
The strategy of the health care industry has been a form of info terrorism, scaring the people into a revolution against the duly elected government.
The background noise of lies and accusations being broadcast as gospel truth is an aggression by the corporations against the consumers, a war that may well destroy our democracy.
Yet even well educated people are falling into lockstep with the message of the corporations, blaming Obama for the indecisiveness of the lawmakers.