Let me be candid.
This is what we are up against... more swift boating, more propaganda, more lies from the right.
Though many of the right wing conspiracy videos on YouTube have gained little notoriety, this one by Ray Stevens was promoted by Bill O'Reilly and it took off, and we need to be weary of it.
We all know that the right wing wants to kill what they call "Obama Care", which is in their lunatic eyes is an elaborate Democratic conspiracy to kill the nation's elderly by pushing them to commit suicide. The Republicans know that nobody has plans to kill grandma, so they try to create a liberal boogey man. The bill calls for end of life planning (a living will), and FactCheck.org said, "the claim that the bill would 'push suicide' is a falsehood".
Have left wingers learned their lesson since John Kerry was Swift Boated out of the White House? Don't let the opposing team run all over you and hope for a Hail Mary at the end. Instead of firing back at Republican propaganda, the Democratic leadership just stepped back and gave the Republicans and Blue Dogs just about everything they wanted.
And the American people will suffer.
Sixty percent of Americans want a public option, and it is understandable that people are discontented with Obama's health care plan. The people deserve better than this, they voted for health care reform and got a bill crafted to appease the insurance industry.
And the news media is not helping. The common polling question is "do you agree with Obama's Health Care Plan?" In the end, liberals say no because they want a public option and conservatives say no because they want to kill the bill, so it gives the impression that the nation is against universal health care when nothing could be further from the truth. Poll after poll has shown that Americans want a public option.
There may have been less push back against Obama's health care plan if Obama had not caved in to the Republicans so early. If he had stood his ground and pushed for a public option, he would have energized his base. Now he is getting swift boated and too many people are buying this Republican bullshit. But not the majority.
Ray Stevens says that "the people have awaken" and he is right. They have let their opinions be known... Here the numbers.
According to a recent poll done by Reuters in December of 2009, "the survey of 2,999 households by Thomson Reuters Corp shows a public skeptical about the cost, quality and accessibility of medical care. Just under 60 percent of those surveyed said they would like a public option as part of any final health care reform legislation, which Republicans and a few Democrats oppose."
As Ray Stevens said... "and we crunch the numbers..." We did, and, yea, Joe Plumber was never too good at math.
We have nothing to fear... the people are behind us, not them.
This really hit home for me on my trip to Washington state. I was speaking with a nice young woman at the Spokane Airport, and I was taken aback when she told me that "the health care bill would legalize suicide," and that is why she is opposed to it. It is disgraceful that the right wing propagandists have convinced good hearted people, people who believe that they should care for their fellow human beings, that Obama's Health Care Legislation would legalize suicide. They are deceitfully using people's good intentions to squelch social progress.
This lie is coming from the same Party that lied us into Iraq, that lied about torture, that lied about the economy, that lied about everything. They cannot be trusted, and we must make it known, and be more aggressive about it.
Here is what the AARP, a group that has from day one been out to kill your grandma, had to say about Obama's Health Care Bill...
This measure would allow Medicare to pay doctors for taking the time to talk with individuals about difficult end-of-life care decisions. It would help provide people with better information on the positives and negatives—both physical and financial—that different treatments can mean for them and their families.
Facing a terminal disease or debilitating accident, some people will choose to take every possible life-saving measure in the hopes that treatment or even a cure will allow them more time with their families. Others will decide that additional treatment would impose too great a burden—emotional, physical and otherwise—on themselves and their families, declining extraordinary measures and instead choosing care to manage their discomfort. Either way, it should be their choice.
This measure would not only help people make the best decisions for themselves, but also better ensure that their wishes are followed.
The next time that a Republican tires to kill health care, I would like a Democratic politician to ask, "are you a Christian?" after they say "of course," the Democrat should respond with the question, "than would Jesus turn away the sick, the dying, the poor, if they did not have health insurance?" Dead silence from the Republican who is caught like a deer in the headlights.
The health care bill is far from perfect, but we cannot allow right wingers to seize this to their advantage. If there is one thing we learned from Massachusetts, it's that we cannot take our position for granted, and we must stand up for progress and respond to right wing attacks. Otherwise, 2012 will be 2004 all over again.