Piece Of Shit Country

After his pertinent presentation to the House of Representatives, Rep. Grayson (D-FL) did the rounds of TV outlets.  On CNN’s The Situation Room he rocked the house.

The side note I would like to develop here concerns Wolf Blitzer’s reaction?  Wolf says to Grayson you can disagree with Republicans, “but to say that they want sick people to die quickly is a huge, huge insult.”  As a journalist, does Wolf really not understand or not know why Grayson is saying this?  Or is Wolf just playing pretend journalist?  Or pretend intellectual?

For starters, it would indeed be insulting, if it wasn’t true. Like the basic defense to defamation: a statement can not be defamatory if it is true.  On the other hand, of course Republicans don’t want sick people to die quickly as an aim in and of itself.  But they don’t want that in the same way that my boss’s wife doesn’t want to kill innocent helpless furry animals, but craves her full-length Chinchilla coat to go to the opera.  The aim is not directly to have sick people die quickly, the point is to please the Republican sponsors: BIG Insurance, BIG Healthcare etc.  If the sick die quickly, well that doesn’t hurt either.   But, lets leave it at that.  I will not attempt to defend Grayson here on the premise that “truth is an absolute defense” as Grayson himself rightly mentions.

What I want to know is why the three CNN political analysts are raising the issue as if it’s a shocker that Grayson’s making such a strong statement, being such a provocateur.  “Huge, huge insult”?  Like its coming out of left field.  What, is Wolf a teenage high-school girl?:  “OMG! I can’t believe you just said that. Like totally, OMG.”  Gloria Borger asks:  “What does your statement, on the floor of the House, do to raise the debate?”.    As if in some way Rep. Grayson is lowering the level of debate here?  Are you serious?  This is the response of CNN Senior Political Analysts?

You can not be serious, knowing that this summer Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) claimed in a speech before the House that the Democrats’ Healthcare reform would cause seniors “to be put to death by their government” (and yes thats a direct quote).  Its damn obvious why Grayson is being provocative.  Its because its about time.  What is this feigned surprise?  As if this Democrat is going too far, or hitting below the belt.

News channel correspondents should not explicitly take sides.  That’s a good rule of thumb – fine.  But not taking sides does not mean taking a position halfway between on the one hand those debating and reasoning and on the other the Representative from the 5th district of Crazy.  If you stay equidistant to two such reference points, you still end up in Mildly Loony Land and that doesn’t help move matters forward.

For the years now, Republicans have been irresponsibly hollowing Congress from the inside and showing complete disdain for the legislative process that should indeed be based on reasoned debate in good faith.  Here was a great opportunity for CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and his team to shut up and stand aside.  Maybe even show that this kind of rhetoric has been a trend and roll some tapes of Republicans own hyperbolic speeches.

And there are plenty of Republicans to pick from, like:

1) Republican Betsy McCaughey, former NY Deputy-Governor, who spearheaded the notion that Obama’s reform sought to encourage the sick to commit suicide or have them euthanized by the government.  Here on the Daily Show.

Also AARP’s thoughts about Ms McCaughey.   AARP is the biggest advocacy group for senior citizens.

2) Republicans such as Michele Bachmann suggesting the reform would leave care for the elderly and disabled at the bottom in the list of priorities.  She claimed that those pushing for reform believe “medical care should be reserved for the non-disbaled.”  She goes on “So watch out if you’re disabled…Every person lives through different stages of life rather than being a single age. Even if a 25-year-old receives priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 now was previously 25.”

Watch her Speech

3) Republicans such as Sarah Palin who on the heels of Rep. Bachmann, posted a comment suggesting the reform would entail Soviet Great Terror style “Death Panels”, which would decide whether elderly parents and babies with Down Syndrome, like her own, would live or die.  See Huffington Post.
Ultimately the above demonstrate the displacement of the essential ingredient for a democratic society, namely reasoned debate at the heart of decision-making, in favor of deceit and propaganda (for this see Al Gore’s wonderful book The Assault On Reason.  Excerpt here).

Specifically about the GOP, the best and most comprehensive piece I have found on the deliberate and orchestrated nature of this team of “knuckle-dragging Neanderthals” is in Rolling Stone Magazine by Tom Dickinson titled “The Lie Machine“.    Which deserves its own post on POSC.