"The federal government has failed"

[me b zola]

I've been increasingly hearing this meme whenever repubs talk about the war on Iraq and the response to Katrina. No republics, the culprit was not the federal government, it was the result of the the federal government in the hands of those who not only don't believe in the federal government, but those who work overtime to dismantle it.

This meme is not only meant to deflect responsibility from those responsibility, but to convince their zombie followers that they cannot trust the federal government.

Please, whenever you hear this meme, confront it head on.

[baldguy]

1. Government only fails when Republicans are in charge of it.

[opihimoimoi]

2. Their HISTORY in the past 60 years confirm it

[paulsby]

7. pj orourke once wrote

that republicans are the party that claims that govt. doesn't work, and then get elected to office and prove it :)

[DCKit]

8. Republics insist that government doesn't work, then spend their time proving it. n/t

[RandomThoughts]

3. The far right has to learn that there are many forms of governance.

Any system that changes or advocates for societal policy, and can effect how society is ran is a form of governance.

The private sector is a form of governance, and they are the ones that were orchestrating the attempted dismantling of a competing governance, one elected by the people.

Quite simply the private sector wants a feudal system where shareholders set policy, so they have to stop the competing form where one person one vote sets the policy.

When the far right say government does not work it misses the whole point that you mentioned. And getting the fact that social control through perception on corporate media, money for lobbyist, and campaign funds, is a form of social control, and it was that social control that defended the 1% at the cost of the 99%.

[Davis_X_Machina]

4. So, nu, who put the mail in my mailbox this morning?

The Mail Fairy? Adam Smith's Invisible Hand?

[me b zola]

5. But this meme works on the brain dead

Watch any clip of the teabaggers and you know it's true. That is why we need to confront this meme when it is spewed.

[pinto]

6. A lot of the RW hoopla, imho, *isn't* about health care. It's about the big, bad feds.

Who also happen to administer two very popular programs - Medicare health care insurance and VA health care delivery. The disconnect is mind boggling.

Yet, we've lived with this meme since Reagan and his cohorts started dismantling federal programs as much as they could. Health care, while on the ropes, is a good point to stem that tide. And we know enough to counter their real agenda, whether it's said up front or not.

Polls show most Americans want to see their fellow citizens get affordable health care. That's not the issue.

RW zealots are willing to throw the baby out with the bath water, which means their fellow citizens, to accommodate some ideological point of view. That's the issue.

[niceypoo]

9. It is about whatever nonsense talking points they heard that day

Sheeple

[me b zola]

10. That is exactly my point

I have nothing but respect for Rachel, but tonight Tom Ridge when questioned about the response to Katrina kept laying the blame on the federal government, never at the hands of the people who were at the helm of the federal government. I simply want for those of us who pay attention to confront them when they give their 'who me?' response.