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StumbleSUN EDITORIAL:
Past time to tone it down
Health care highlights the unfortunately shrill tenor of the debate over critical issues
Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009 | 2:06 a.m.
At the end of an interview with the Las Vegas Sun’s editorial board Wednesday, Abraham Foxman, head of the national Anti-Defamation League, asked a question of his own: “Are you worried about the mood in this country?”
Foxman expressed his concern, noting that the issues facing the country are “almost a perfect storm.”
“You’ve got the economic crisis, a lot of dislocation, instability, anxiety. You have the immigration issue … and the election of an African-American president,” he said before turning to the ugly tenor of the “debate” over the issues.
The country’s mood — angry and anxious — is fueled as much by the overheated and disingenuous rhetoric as it is by the issues themselves. Consider the debate over health care, which has been inflamed by reprehensible remarks made by commentators and politicians on the far right.
Glenn Beck, for example, urged his listeners to read Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” to understand President Barack Obama’s strategies on health care. Rush Limbaugh has made reference to Obama’s “brownshirts” and has talked about what he sees as “similarities” between Democrats and the Nazis.
Rev. Richard Land, the leader of the Southern Baptist Conference’s public policy group, outrageously said he was going to give White House health care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel the “Dr. Josef Mengele Award,” referring to the Nazi “Angel of Death” who tortured Jewish and Gypsy children in his efforts to create the Aryan “master race.”
To say that the president, Democrats or the health care overhaul legislation in any way resemble the people or policies that perpetrated the Holocaust is despicable. Not only is it a repugnant and dishonest comparison, but it also lessens the crimes of the Nazis, equating a domestic debate over health care to the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews.
Land, unlike the others, apologized, saying he was using “hyperbole” to make a point. Unfortunately, such comparisons seem to be the gospel truth to many of the right-wing faithful.
And that’s why, to answer Foxman’s question, we are worried that such reckless rhetoric, left unchecked and allowed to fester, is only going to increase divisions in the country and stoke more hatred.
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Our die has been cast. We are too far gone and there is no turning back. These divisions will soon be revealed in ways that will unhinge not only the U.S., but the entire world. And these forces cannot be stopped now.
The Anti-Defamation League has polls that they run about every 10 years. It is used to measure racism and anti-jewish beliefs.
In their polls, it says that over 70% of blacks have anti-jewish racists beliefs with nearly 40% of blacks have strong anti-jewish racist beliefs.
Hmmmmm......I bet a ton of money that the Sun will never print that.
As an illiterate unwashed redneck white trash tea-bagger I realize that I have no right to question the spin that the Democrats are putting out.
Obama in addressing the Nation from Congress was right to call my opposition positions "a lie, plain and simple.
I know that Obama must be true to his need to "call out people who misrepresent his positions. Obviously because we have "phony claims" and I am unable to understand what is good for me.
We welcome "Harvard graduate" Obama's snarling smack down public rebuke of opposition who do not trust him or believe him. This is the kind of leadership change we can believe in.
It is an ill conceived notion that the unwashed public should view a congressional bill and believe they could understand it.
The fact that the Health Insurance bill will be done in secret and the Democrats will continue to spin that the unwashed have no right to view the Health Insurance bill because they are illiterates with "phony claims" and are unable to understand what is good for them.
Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are tone deaf. They do not respond to our phone calls, e-mails, townhalls, or rallies. They refuse to listen to us because we are lairs to them, but mostly because we do not believe them or trust them. Harry called us evilmonger and Nancy called us un-American.
At a campaign rally on 9-12-2009, in Minnesota Obama said "They can't stop us!" John Podesta said, In the coming weeks, the president and the extensive resources he commands will be used to lavish attention on two groups: Democratic lawmakers and middle-class Americans who are anxious about how the cost of extending coverage to tens of millions of the uninsured will affect their own health insurance and finances. "You have assets you can deploy to make the case and bump up individual members" of Congress, said Podesta. Mean while ACORN, SEIU, Community for Change, and Organizing for America are also using taxpayer money and selling Obamacare.
The White House has a message to the tens of thousands of protesters who railed against big government during a rally in Washington Saturday 9-12-2009: You're wrong.
White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday that the protesters, part of the "tea party" movement, do not represent the views of the public when it comes to health care reform. Axelrod said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "You know, My message to them is, they're wrong."
So go back to your trailer park and shut up!
Not even the (Blue States) want Obamacare' And as for David Axelrod your side is going to lose.
So Abe Foxman and ADL, not to mention the LVSun editorial board, are now up in arms about the nazi stuff being directed at the Obama administration. Hmmm, where were you guys the eights yrs the Bush administration was subject to this smear? Oh, that' right, you hypocrits were okay with it then.
So go back to your trailer park and shut up!
____________________
This is what liberal/leftwingers really think about poor and working class people. You're just nothing but trailer trash to them, worthy of nothing but scorn. Just shut your mouth and let them decide what is good for you.
We also have to clean up local hate talk. The latest insanity from local hate talk: "John Kerry committed treason" add to this the contention that "WMD was found in Iraq, Obama is a commie," etc.
We obviously have some very sick people on the air waves here locally. Hopefully the health care bill will have mental health care for these sick individuals.
What has the world come to?
mred states that John Kerry committed treason.
Good going there mred, I am beginning to like your way of thinking. I have a couple of left over "Vietnam Veterans against John Kerry" bumper stickers if you like for me to send you a couple.