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Loading ...Besen: A deficit in decency
Tens of thousands of anti-government types, gun nuts, white supremacists, religious zealots, tax evaders and crazies streamed into Washington last Saturday. It was pure delirium, as the National Mall resembled a sanitarium.
In a sea of American (and many Confederate) flags waved by more than a few secessionists, Obama was pictured as Hitler and portrayed as Stalin. The federal government was likened to an alien invader run by an illegitimate, foreign-born black president, who just happened to be elected by the American people.I wish I could say that this unruly behavior is an anomaly, but it seems to be a growing and vocal part of the Republican Party. In the 1980’s, Rev. Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed used direct mail and talk radio to organize what were previously known as busybodies into the Moral Majority. Today’s GOP has harnessed the power of the Internet and cable television to lure the loons and create a constituency of crackpots.
The result has been disastrous for this nation. Our healthcare system is broken and we are rated near the bottom when compared to nearly every other industrialized country. We pay more per person for healthcare and we live shorter lives. There is instability, as families often go broke when a loved one falls ill and there is insecurity because losing a job means forfeiting coverage. American businesses are saddled with growing healthcare costs, which make it more difficult to compete in the global marketplace.
Yet, instead of an adult conversation about an issue that is crippling our nation, our dimmest citizens have derailed the debate. These out-of-control, severely under-medicated, surreptitious partisans hijacked town hall meetings and may cost the rest of us decent healthcare reform. Obama’s powerful speech last week helped mitigate the damage, but having frittered away the summer, it may be too late for the president to regain momentum.
At fault is the media – who routinely offer right wing sickos a stage to air the most outrageous allegations. Max Blumenthal, author of the new book, “Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party,” discussed the media’s culpability last week on National Public Radio.
“The mainstream media attempts this veneer of balance of entertaining both sides,” said Blumenthal. “But when one side is completely hysterical, conspiratorial, and leveling baseless attacks, should it be taken seriously? And what are the consequences for taking these attacks seriously in a democracy?”
The result, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), is an explosion of militias and hate groups. In a new report, the SPLC documents at least, “50 new militia training groups — one of them made up of present and former police officers and soldiers.”
“Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country,” says the report. The bizarre theories include:
1) Nativist theories about secret Mexican plans to “reconquer” the American Southwest
2) A secret network of U.S. concentration camps to imprison “patriots” who stand up to the federal government
If these were just harmless blowhards, that would be one thing. The problem is, these nuts are heavily armed and are a staple at shows that hawk firearms. SPLC reports that, “Sales of guns and ammunition have skyrocketed amid fears of new gun control laws, much as they did in the 1990s.”
Unless the media culture changes, there will be another Oklahoma City-type disaster or even an assassination attempt on our President. Responsible media outlets must stop offering platforms to serial distorters such as Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter and Glenn Beck. The next time Sarah Palin makes up a lie, such as death panels, the story should be about how she twisted the truth. Not a single story should be written or broadcast giving legs to the lies and allowing mistruths to run amok.
Thanks to the press winking and nodding to the nuts, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) felt empowered to heckle the President during his healthcare speech. More disturbing are reports that say many people in Wilson’s district applaud his sophomoric actions.
Clearly, it is time we stop calling these people “conservatives.” True conservatives, who believe in respecting authority and protocol, would have been appalled at the example Wilson set for children. After all, how can young people be expected to obey parents and teachers when the president is catcalled in the halls of Congress?
I’ve had it with such antics. This crowd destabilized Bill Clinton’s presidency. Then, they stole the 2000 election, by sending partisan thugs down to South Florida to disrupt the recount. Now, the paranoiacs are in a full-blown panic over the first black president.
This fight is no longer about healthcare, nor is about deficits. It is about the very health of the political process and turning back the deficit in decency exemplified by Joe Wilson, Sarah Palin and the demagogues out to undermine our system of government.
Wayne:
It is not sophomoric conduct it is the Republicans at their best. They have shown their true colors and they are worse than what should be expected from intelligent people. I wouldn’t even expect this from a 6th grader. The republicans have truly sunk to a new low.
What I cannot figure out is why seemingly other intelligent Republicans do not come out (no pun meant) and distance themselves from this type of lowly person.
Well said? What’s next? We better have extra security at that march in oct, is all im saying.
The media gives people what they want, and people want extremism right now, either to participate in or to observe from the safety of their living rooms. Politics has become more entertaining than anything Hollywood can dole out, and we are eating it all up with glee. When will it stop? How many people have to lose their lives before the rest of us acknowledge that our thirst for extremism is fueling this fire?
Great article and spot on. I wish the media was more responsible and I do believe that the republican’s have stirred a pot that they no longer have control over.
Thank you for a fantastic column and for having the guts to put this out there, especially the part about the media not taking responsibility by accompanying the crackpot rants with the facts.
Facebook user: I think you are referring to “let the people vote” arguments about civil rights. I’m not sure what constitution or history book you are reading but we in fact do not live in a majority vote environment.
In this country majority vote decides some things but not many. It decides who represents us but in many cases they need super majorities, filibuster or veto proof majorities or simply a feeling of consensus before leadership will put something to a majority vote.
However all this activity is done by our representatives. We do not in general allow the majority to decide on civil rights and many other things because of what you say: the average public is not enlightened at all.
now of course we witness this get derailed with crazy things like the constitution in California and Maine which seem to allow majority vote on civil rights (as interpreted by some…i don’t agree).
Giving into “let the people vote” legitimizes claims to the rights of the majority to control everything. Our founders knew this would be stupid and avoided it whenever they could. Unfortunatley some states have allowed it but it clearly was not intentional and needs to be corrected. Let’s not give up by conceding we’ve already lost!
James: thanks for pointing out the current Republicans are not conservative. As a conservative I don’t have a party. I’m too young to have ever had a good Republican party,(the southern baptists liberalized the party when I was a mere child and yes the religious right is LIBERAL not conservative for wanting to control everything we do) the libertarians seem to be infiltrated with the crazies you cite above (and they seem to carry the same bigotry baggage as current Republicans, not acting very libertarian at all w.r.t. rights) and all the other options just want to take my money and spend it on the lazy classes.
It is sad we don’t have a party that represents what I think a majority of Americans feel: stay out of our lives, quit being the morality police and stop expanding government so much that we can’t afford to do what we should be doing like providing better healthcare options.
Everyone talks about the “moderate center”…I think that “center” is actually quite libertarian and would take in moderate lefties and righties if expressed in the way I did.
But with religion erasing conservatism in the Republican party and rampant expansionist ideals invading the Democratic party, I think people have lost sight of the common ground many of us share.
When I was working in corporate America, we had a term for the Obama administration’s failing this summer. We called it a “poor roll out.”
>I’m all for trying to reach out and make people who don’t understand understand, but at this point we are quite honestly past that, and that makes me sadder then I can possibly describe.
I too am feeling a very, VERY deep sadness about all of this. It’s affected a few friendships of mine, disrupted at least one party, and resulted in me losing two nights of sleep over it. I’m glad I’m not the only one really saddened by the way the political discourse turned this past year (maybe “continued to turn” or “strengthened in its entrenchment” would be better phrases).
I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s useless to talk to people who are already on board with this anti-government thing, and I’d like to implore the anti-government cynics on the Left to ratchet down their own rhetoric, too. Instead, I think we should understand that politics today is about marketing and PR. It’s about the group that gets out there the earliest, the strongest, and with the most concise and catchy sound bites. Then, repeat frequently!
It’s a battle for the apathetic Middle. If the Left can ratchet up its PR and get it going much, MUCH earlier, and if we can concentrate on swaying the Middle, we’ll win.
Obama’s failing was not in the plan or the behind the scenes politics. It was in his oddly passive allowance of the Tea Baggers to get out strong for months this summer with no equally strong, coherent, catchy PR response in favor of health-care reform. (Was I the only one who wanted to take a 2×4 to Kathleen Sebelius as she stood stone faced, silent, and defeated in front of screaming tea baggers? We needed more Barney Frank style, “On what planet do you live?” types. How could the administration NOT have been prepared for this?!)
Anderson Cooper does a very good job of journalism in this interview:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/15/tea-party-leader-melts-do_n_286933.html
He merely scratched the surface, and The Crazy came screaming out.
about Michael Steele, the antigay ex-governor Ehrlich’s lt. gov. So glad he didn’t get to be our MD state governor.
Man with a harsh and antagonistic “barking dog” accent. And antigay.
It’s just like an African American female member of Congress said, “You may not like the president and may not agree with him, but he is the guest of Congress and you treat your guest with respect. The president is not the president of the Republicans or is not the president of the Democrats, he is the president of the United States and when he addresses Congress, you at least respect the office of the president of the United States. There is a certain decorum that needs to observed.”
I thought good for her. What if there were no decorum and Democrat congressmen and congresswomen could just freely stand up and should insults when a Republican president addresses the Congress? You may revile the person and his or her message, but if you can’t respect the person, at least you should respect that your guest in Congress represents an office of president of United States. While president is there, you don’t stand up and call him or her insults. You grit you teeth and know that your will have plenty of opportunity later to challenge the logic of his or her message and of the bills she or he (meaning any president not just this particular one) support amongst your fellow senators or representatives. You can get mad and irate all you want and tell of how this or that bill will doom the economy or the country, but you don’t call your president a “liar”. You just punch his or her logic full of holes instead after his or her speech is over and she or he is gone from the chambers and you make your case to the American people and to the rest of Congress as to why you will not and can not support what a president wants. That way you preserve the dignity of Congress and of the office of the presidency of the US from you own mouth while stating you opposition regardless of the rest of the nation thinks.
As a Congressperson, you are allowed to object and disagree all you like while preserving a proper decorum and respect and a decent standard of behavior at the same time. It has been done and is possible to do that while speaking your mind freely at the same time.
“The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers… [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.” –Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785.
“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807
If only Jefferson had access to television and Fox “news”, how much more critical would he have been…
I looked a news paper photo of these sort of people with twisted mouths, very weird and ugly facial expressions full of suspicion, anger and hate just because we have a president trying to better our health care system. To them the whole thing is “more and more government control and socialism.”
Sometimes, the government is needed to save the people from themselves. In this case, the people are their own worst enemy. Don’t even like the idea that insurance companies that can leave you to get sick and die over a “pre-existing” condition they refuse to cover may have to change their ways on that.
My insurance was to go double in its rates for me just because I turned 50 6 years ago. I had to raise my deducticle from $500 to $2,500 to keep the rates from doubling. I don’t see why these horrid, misguided people with their faces twisted with hate should get to keep me from hopefully more affordable insurance one day.
There was one self-serving owner of an insurance company out there with a sign that said “yuh had enough of changey, hopey?” He would love continue to charge expensive insurance that won’t cover you if you’re were sick when you got his insurance.
Extremely well written Mr. Benson, as always. True, the American people really need to take notice to the Republican tactics and divisiveness. Just today I received an email from Michael Steele, the RNC Chairman. In it, he tells his minions about the Democratic congressional hypocrisy over the Joe Wilson outburst rather than focusing on the real issue of healthcare! Then rather than give a Republican solution to the healthcare problems, he goes on to condemn five different Democrats for miscellaneous actions.
While they may have the crazies falling into goosestep patterns, I think they are putting nails into their own coffin. The electorate will clearly remember the prominent crazies and their wacko statements from Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, and Rush baby.
Let the death bells toll…….
Dear Mr. Bensen,
I will admit to generally feeling you do not have your pulse on the center of the nation. I usually read your articles and agree with where you are coming from but feel that you miss some basic truths about how we really do have to accept that we live in a majority vote environment where the majority aren’t enlightened and work within those bounds.
On this one, I’m with you 100%. Amen to everything you said. I’m all for trying to reach out and make people who don’t understand understand, but at this point we are quite honestly past that, and that makes me sadder then I can possibly describe.