From Bill Moyers Journal, America the Greatest Show on Earth.

[elleng]

BILL MOYERS: The editors of THE ECONOMIST magazine say America's health care debate has become a touch delirious, with people accusing each other of being evil-mongers, dealers in death, and un-American.

Well, that's charitable.

I would say it's more deranged than delirious, and definitely not un-American.

Those crackpots on the right praying for Obama to die and be sent to hell — they're the warp and woof of home-grown nuttiness. So is the creature from the Second Amendment who showed up at the President's rally armed to the teeth. He's certainly one of us. Red, white, and blue kooks are as American as apple pie and conspiracy theories.

Bill Maher asked me on his show last week if America is still a great nation. I should've said it's the greatest show on earth. Forget what you learned in civics about the Founding Fathers — we're the children of Barnum and Bailey, our founding con-men. Their freak show was the forerunner of today's talk radio.

Speaking of which: we've posted on our website an essay by the media scholar Henry Giroux. He describes the growing domination of hate radio as one of the crucial elements in a "culture of cruelty" increasingly marked by overt racism, hostility and disdain for others, coupled with a simmering threat of mob violence toward any political figure who believes health care reform is the most vital of safety nets, especially now that the central issue of life and politics is no longer about working to get ahead, but struggling simply to survive.

So here we are, wallowing in our dysfunction. Governed — if you listen to the rabble rousers — by a black nationalist from Kenya smuggled into the United States to kill Sarah Palin's baby. And yes, I could almost buy their belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, only I think he shipped them to Washington, where they've been recycled as lobbyists and trained in the alchemy of money laundering, which turns an old-fashioned bribe into a First Amendment right.

Only in a fantasy capital like Washington could Sunday morning talk shows become the high church of conventional wisdom, with partisan shills treated as holy men whose gospel of prosperity always seems to boil down to lower taxes for the rich.

Poor Obama. He came to town preaching the religion of nice. But every time he bows politely, the harder the Republicans kick him.

No one's ever conquered Washington politics by constantly saying "pretty please" to the guys trying to cut your throat.

Let's get on with it, Mr. President. We're up the proverbial creek with spaghetti as our paddle. This health care thing could have been the crossing of the Delaware, the turning point in the next American Revolution — the moment we put the mercenaries to rout, as General Washington did the Hessians at Trenton. We could have stamped our victory "Made in the USA." We could have said to the world, "Look what we did!" And we could have turned to each other and said, "thank you."

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09042009/transcript4.html

[Mythsaje]

1. I keep saying, It's a fucking war.

Only, well, they're the only ones fighting it.

[AuntPatsy]

2. I wonder...does President Obama ever or has ever read or listened to Moyer's?

If so...he is not a stupid man...and I would hope..that with all our hand wringing these days..that he has and still does and takes note..and is a work in progress...

Bottom line in the old days when war was hand to hand combat...it was insanity and was sure to leave one broken and bloody on the battle field when walking into the heat of battle without a proper shield...

Unless he is one of them..which could or could not be true..he is fighting but unlike those now dead and gone who have once fought incredible odds he is doing it smarter and not going into combat hand to hand face to face allowing the enemy a lethal opening and has decided on fighting in a way that ensures no blood of his or those closest to him will ever fall upon the battle field in order to ensure he and in the same sense "we" and not they win this time around? JMHO...

[elleng]

3. I like

'unlike.'

[AuntPatsy]

6. Me too and what leaves me to believe that he is fighting but not in the open

is the very way the gop is handling his candidacy and I say candidacy because the war of words that hinted time and time again that death to this liberal was preferable then having him in the white house was and still is seemingly the call to the underlings that still resides insider our countries borders..

The enemy..the terrorists, the true ones we should fear live insider our very own borders,, down the street, a cans throw away from your front door..you know them well...and the fact that these known terrorists to many of us have not been silenced but have been prodded as if someone is in need of a stampede of thousand buffalo in order to ensure no one remains standing when they thunder by should be a sign of which many seem to have missed..


If perhaps like some believe that President Obama was allowed this win because he is one of them, then Why are the media and the many many right wing loud mouths both old and new continuing their obvious need to ensure they startle those buffalo off their lazy grazing in order to accomplish the unthinkable...death to anyone who remotely stands in their path with a vain attempt to stop this horde of unthinking animalistic terrors...


It's obvious what the gop are hoping at least to myself..


If they did not fear a so called friend to their power circle then why continue to incite the violence of a mindless stampede of wild untamed animals which they know very well once spooked are very hard to stop?

[ipaint]

7. They incite violence because it is good for business.

They whip up folks racism because they can use it to further weaken progress. They aren't afraid. They are calculating, cruel and relentless. They being the "captains" of industry and their ilk.

They will do this to Obama until he publicly stands up and calls them on it and in doing so stands up for the majority of Americans who aren't ignorant selfish assholes.

You can't make deals with them, you can't have it both ways for example - preserve excessive profiteering on sickness and achieve healthcare for all, there is no middle ground we past middle ground 30 years ago.

It's time to take a stand and allow the majority of Americans who are not represented in the media fight a real battle for what we believe in instead of staged circus sideshow skirmishes that keep us all busily accomplishing nothing.

Americans elected a black man who was relentlessly labeled a socialist/communist for two years straight. He sold us on a message of change. I don't believe making nice and giving up more ground to the bully abusers was what they had in mind.

[MissMarple]

4. If it wasn't health care...it would be something else.

Ignorance and fear are the weapons our enemy uses. Our enemy is totalitarianism... of any stripe. It hates us. It's minions hold us in contempt. But, they are very afraid of us. They always have been.

[elleng]

5. Don't know how 'afraid.'

I think they're move confident in their own techniques, which are quite successful.