You sent me another Obama is the anti-Christ e-mail (see the bottom of this post for the full text of the e-mail) today and I’m not sure why.

I know you’re a Republican and that you certainly didn’t vote for Obama, but I also know you’re far too smart to believe what this e-mail says. I’m certain you know that I don’t agree with what’s in it, so I think maybe you sent it to me by accident. If you did send it on purpose, maybe you did because you thought I’d find it funny. For the record, I do.

Maybe, just maybe, you thought I’d read it and change my mind. That I’d suddenly say, “you know what, this strange e-mail that reminds of one of those ‘Bill Gates will give you a million dollars if you forward this to 10 people’ messages from the late-90s is right, I don’t trust President Obama, maybe he is the devil!”

You see, it’s not that I don’t appreciate you thinking of me and the millions of other misguided souls out there who believe we should have health care for all, that we shouldn’t torture and that a nation whose founders, at their very cores believed Democracy can only succeed if we work to maintain a pluralistic, secular government.

I believe in God and I sure as heck don’t think Barack Obama is anything more than a man like me, your husband, your sons and the 42 other men who served as President before him. He’s not a messiah, he’s not going to save us from all that troubles us and he sure as heck isn’t going to bump Jesus out of his seat at the right hand of the Father.

As a matter of fact, I don’t think any reasonable person out there (of whom we’re the overwhelming majority of Obama supporters) would ever equate him to the Messiah. That’s why I’m so confused about its tone, because, and excuse me for being impolite, I think this is fake outrage generated by someone on the religious right meant to whip up some fervor. It seems, because you forwarded this to me and who knows how many others, that it’s working.

I’ve got to admit something. I don’t understand the mindset of people who create things like this. I don’t understand what would possess someone to be so angry that they would spread blatant lies in an attempt to undermine the President and federal government.

And for what? He’s trying to ensure that the most vulnerable in our society have access to health care and yet he has to deal with angry mobs carrying guns to town hall meetings, he has to defend himself against accusations that he’s not a Christian, or heck, not even an American. It seems that people on the right are so afraid of something — I dare not say what — that they will stop at nothing to smear him.

If its merely his ideas you’re afraid of, wouldn’t it be more constructive to fight him with your own ideas? I mean, your Senator, Chuck Grassley, has spent more time denouncing Democratic health care reform telling you to “be frightened for your grandmother,” than to attack the proposed legislation on its merits.

All we seem to get out of the right is fear tactics and e-mails like the one you forwarded to me. I must say, the best parody writers couldn’t do a better job of encapsulating the last year or so of Republican bumbling.

Joe the Plumber makes an appearance, there’s a teleprompter joke and there’s even a birther reference. Funny, yes, because it wraps up every half-baked idea to defeat the President the right has dreamed up, and yet in that colossal pile of FAIL you can see how reason has defeated it. What’s scary is that there is still a percentage of the population who — despite an overwhelming mountain of facts placed right in front of them — people still hold on to these absurd ideas. Facts be damned, Obama is the anti-Christ.

I know you’re not one of those people, though, which is why I’m so puzzled you sent this to me.

Throughout the e-mail, in each section of the poem, the theme that we live in the greatest country in the world and that to change anything about it is tantamount to revolution. To think that anything we do as Americans could possibly be wrong is communist! Wrong is for other countries, that’s why they all try to come here. That’s also why we have to build a huge wall to keep them out.

You see, I agree with you that we live in the greatest country in the world. What I see, however, is a world out there which is increasingly finding a way to do business without us. We haven’t always been the best neighbors, you see.

We’re mired in the worst recession in decades. Heck, unemployment here in Detroit is up to 20% or more. Meanwhile, China’s economy is chugging along, so much so that they and many others are pushing for the American dollar to no longer be the standard for international trade.

We stand to lose trillions if that happens and the only way to walk that back is to get our own economy in order. Like it or not, that means we’re going to have to talk about regulating the financial sector, which caused this disaster in the first place.

See, I don’t think I’m all that dumb, I answer final Jeopardy correct from time-to-time, but I couldn’t hold a candle to the brainiacs in charge of our country. So if I can see the writing on the wall, that something in this country needs to change if we want to remain the greatest country in the world, then these guys must really see a problem and I hope are working to fix it. Provided, of course, if people like you let them.

So I think what I’m saying is that it’s naïve to think we can just keep our heads down and things will keep chugging along forever. Did I tell you that I live in Detroit? I’ve seen first-hand what can happen when you don’t plan for the future.

Of course, the viewpoint expressed in this e-mail suggests that we live in a society that doesn’t need any changes in the first place. Of course believing that would mean that we live in a country where social injustices never exist, where our laws treat everyone equal and where free-thinking individuals have the chance to make decisions regarding their own lives and bodies.

So this e-mail is saying that we live in a society free from discrimination based on gender, race, religion or sexual orientation. By saying we don’t need to make changes, it’s saying that every little boy and little girl in this country grows up with the same opportunities, regardless of where they were born or how much money their parents have.

See, I don’t think that’s true, and I don’t think you do either.

When I moved from your fair city to suburban Detroit during high school, I went from a very affluent school district to one that could be considered to be on the poorer end of the spectrum. I gave up orchestra because we didn’t have one. I gave up my AP classes because they were not offered. I gave up a lot of things because, in a school district that lacks resources, students don’t have the same opportunities.

Now maybe you can explain to me why, in the greatest country in the world, a country that needs not this so-called change our President wants to bring, 90 percent of the kids I would have graduated with in your town went on to college, while only 45% from my class here in Michigan did.

See, in a country that affords all its citizens the same rights and opportunities, regardless of their station in life, you would think that all students would have the same chance to succeed.

There is a legacy of inequality in this country that has less to do with race than it does with the divide between rich and poor. Unfortunately, because the cycle has perpetuated itself for decades, when we were mired in institutional racism, it disproportionately affects minorities.

Poor whites bear the brunt of this too, though, you live in Iowa, look out your back door at some rural farming communities, you’ll see what I mean. To use the formula I see anchors on Fox use to say something without really saying it, “I can’t say for sure that higher poverty levels in a town correlates to lower academic achievement in its schools, but I find it odd that kids who grow up poor fail more often.”

Now I know you can see that, despite living in the greatest country in the world, we’ve got some work to do. Reading this e-mail you sent me, however, it makes me think that whoever wrote it would rather hide their head in the sand than face the change that is staring them in the face. It seems like they just want to close their eyes and hope it all goes away.

I don’t think you’re one of those people. I think you’re smarter than that. I think you’re astute enough to recognize that changes need to be made. Part of what has made our nation great is that we have always, when times are toughest, come together to solve our problems.

It makes me scared, though, when I get e-mails like this and I realize that there really are people out there who believe this nonsense. It frightens me because people like this, who are so terrified of the President are willing to torpedo changes we need to make in this country to stay the greatest nation in the world. It’s as if they are so concerned about beating the President that they don’t care that our nation is slowly dying because nobody can get along.

Millions die each year for lack of health care. Our economy is in shambles because our financial regulators were asleep at the switch. We’ve got a growing superpower in China threatening our influence in the world. And yet wing nuts on the right are letting people like Orly Taitz hijack the conversation and question whether our President is really an American?

I know that you love this country as much as I do. I know you don’t really think the President is the anti-Christ, a Muslim terrorist sympathizer, a Nazi, a Marxist, a Fascist, Socialist or Communist. I know you don’t think he’s an illegal immigrant, Kenyan usurper or that he wants to set up death panels so he can eat your grandmothers brains or Sarah Palin’s baby.

Why then, do reasonable people like you continue to forward things like this around? Why do reasonable people like you continue to listen to ideologues like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck? Why do reasonable, patriotic, Americans like you continue to allow a wedge to be driven between us over nothing?

We’re two friends on different sides of the political fence, yet we love and respect each other. I just wish your side and my side could sit down at the table and talk like reasonable adults. We don’t need to shout, we don’t need to call each other names and we certainly don’t need to waste our time on outrageous accusations.

We’re living in a time of crisis and how we as Americans react will determine whether we come out of this on top or if we slip into the history books as another super power in decline.

We’re waiting. We just wish you’d stop throwing rocks over the fence at us and come over, shake our hands and be willing to talk.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Your friend,

Rusty

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You may chose to read this or you may choose to delete it! I read it and I see truth in it, we need to pray for the USA!!!


WOW!!!

How's this for apocalyptic literature. This was written by a pastor's wife in biblical prose as a commentary of current events. It is brilliant.

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And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land called America , having lost their morals, their initiative, and their will to defend their liberties, chose as their Supreme Leader that person known as "The One."

He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning; but He hypnotized the people telling them, "I am sent to save you."

My lack of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego, and my association with evil doers are of no consequence. I shall save you with hope and Change.

Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the land that he who proceeded me is evil, that he has defiled the nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed. And the people rejoiced, for even though they knew not what "The One" would do, he had promised that it was good; and they believed.

And "The One" said " We live in the greatest country in the world. Help me change everything about it!"

And the people said, "Hallelujah! Change is good!"

Then He said, "We are going to tax the rich fat-cats." And the people said "Sock it to them!" "And redistribute their wealth." And the people said, "Show us the money!" And then he said, " redistribution of wealth is good for everybody."

And Joe the plumber asked, " Are you kidding me? You're going to steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??" And "The One" ridiculed and taunted him, and Joe's personal records were hacked and publicized.

One lone reporter asked, "Isn't that Marxist policy?" And she was banished from the kingdom!

Then a citizen asked, "With no foreign relations experience and having zero military experience or knowledge, how will deal with radical terrorists?"

And "The One" said, "Simple. I shall sit with them and talk with them and show them how nice we really are; and they will forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!" And the people said, "Hallelujah!! We are safe at last, and we can beat our weapons into free cars for the people!"

Then "The One" said "I shall give 95% of you lower taxes." And one, lone voice said, "But 40% of us don't pay ANY taxes." So "The One" said, "Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!"

And the people said, "Hallelujah! Show us the money!"

Then "The One" said, "I shall tax your Capital Gains when you sell your homes!" And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed. And He said.. "I shall mandate employer-funded health care for every worker and raise the minimum wage. And I shall give every person unlimited healthcare and medicine and transportation to the clinics." And the people said, "Give me some of that!"

Then he said, "I shall penalize employers who ship jobs overseas."

And the people said, "Where's my rebate check?"

Then "The One" said, "I shall bankrupt the coal industry and electricity rates will skyrocket!" And the people said, "Coal is dirty, coal is evil, no more coal! But we don't care for that part about higher electric rates." So "The One" said, Not to worry. If your rebate isn't enough to cover your expenses, we shall bail you out.

Just sign up with the ACORN and you troubles are over!"

Then He said, "Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted. Let's grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free lunches, free medical care, bi-lingual signs and guaranteed housing…" And the people said, "Hallelujah!" and they made him king!

And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers. Others simply gave up and went out of business and the economy sank like unto a rock dropped from a cliff.

The bank banking industry was destroyed. Manufacturing slowed to a crawl. And more of the people were without a means of support.

Then "The One" said, "I am the "the One"- The Messiah – and I'm here to save you! We shall just print more money so everyone will have enough!" But our foreign trading partners said unto Him. "Wait a minute. Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung! You will have to pay more… And "The One" said, "Wait a minute. That is unfair!!" And the world said, "Neither are these other idiotic programs you have embraced. Lo, you have become a Socialist state and a second-rate power. Now you shall play by our rules!"

And the people cried out, "Alas, alas!! What have we done?" But yea verily, it was too late. The people set upon The One and spat upon him and stoned him, and his name was dung. And the once mighty nation was no more; and the once proud people were without sustenance or shelter or hope. And the Change "The One" had given them was as like unto a poison that had destroyed then and like a whirlwind that consumed all that they had built.

And the people beat their chests in despair and cried out in anguish,

"give us back our nation and our pride and our hope!!" But it was too late, and their homeland was no more.

You may think this a fairy tale, but it's not.

It's happening RIGHT NOW

THIS really tells it like it is. After reading it — and before you go into the bathroom to throw-up — forward it to your friends and those you know who care about our country and what is happening to it under the rule of Commissar Obamanation.

I watched a lot of the coverage of your protests in Washington D.C. this weekend and I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading about and it viewing the pictures and frankly, I’m confused about some of your arguments.

You seem like such a cohesive, united grassroots* movement and yet some of the arguments put forth, especially on picket signs during the protests, seem completely contradictory. I’m sure you’re reasonable, logical people, so maybe you could just clarify for me, because I’ve got some questions.

1. My political science and history classes in high school and college taught me that socialism and communism were completely different ideologies. As a matter of fact, after Jews, Hitler reserved most of his hatred for communists. How then, can Barack Obama be both a Nazi and a communist? Also, how can he also be a Marxist and a fascist, two more ideologies that don’t jive with one another or with socialism and communism?

Now, I should offer full disclosure, I was educated in the public schools, including a public university. I have heard Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly talk about how public universities are full of liberals. Could my professors, back in the late 1990s and early 2000s already have been a part of the conspiracy to get Barack Obama elected President? Would that be why they would teach us things that about communism and socialism that were, according to your signs, outright lies?

2. During the George W. Bush administration, any criticism of the President that strayed across the line, questioning his judgment, intelligence, ties to cronies in the oil industry, failures in the business world, challenges to his “facts” on the Iraq war or history of drug and alcohol abuse were met with screams from right-wing talking heads and lawmakers that although we may disagree with his policies, we should respect the man and the office, especially in a time of war.

Personally speaking, I agree wholeheartedly that we should respect the office of the President. For example, George W. Bush claims to be sober and a born-again Christian. I respect both things and think that reminders of him being a cokehead are unfair. I do think, however, that it was reasonable to challenge him when it seems he was fudging the facts in the run-up to the Iraq war.

If it was so important that we respected the office of the President and the man sitting in said office while George W. Bush was there, why is it all right for Joe Wilson to shout at the President from the floor of the House of Representatives?

Why is it all right for you to hold up signs with pictures of him with Hitler mustaches and devil horns? Why is it all right for your leaders in the right-wing media to constantly talk about his admissions of youthful indiscretions with drugs and alcohol?

Is he not every bit as legitimate a President as George W. Bush? Are we not still at war? Why then would you demand we offer respect to one President yet offer nothing but contempt and hatred for another? Which brings me to my next question.

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3. Speaking of respect, why is it all right for members of your group to show up at rallies with assault rifles? Why is it all right for people at your marches to hold up signs saying “We came unarmed (this time)” or quoting Jefferson about replenishing the Tree of Liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants? Why is it all right to threaten the life of the President?

If you don’t agree with him, there’s an election in 2012. Get out and vote for your guy. Actually, I’ll do you one better. Put someone out there worth voting for you and you might actually win.

I’ve got a hint for you, that person is not Sarah Palin. I can’t believe you haven’t seen through her yet.

4. What is with this birther nonsense? We all know these people are crazy, why haven’t you, as a group, come out and said so? Don’t you understand that we can’t have a legitimate dialogue with you until you disavow loons like this?

I hate to keep going back to examples from the Bush administration, but when the election was finally settled by the Supreme Court, you guys on the right just kept saying that he was elected legitimately and that we should get over it.

Yet now, we have a President who was elected not only by winning the electoral college, but also by gaining the votes of a majority of Americans, and you can’t let it go. He has produced a birth certificate and other overwhelming evidence that proves his citizenship and still a very vocal sect of your group will not accept the facts.

5. Speaking of loons, if you want to claim that none of this uproar has to do with racism, why is nothing said and done about the people who attend your protests with signs making veiled and sometimes outright racist statements?

It makes it nearly impossible to take anything you say or do as a group seriously when such a vocal part of your contingent is calling the President any number of racial epithets. Say what you want about not seeing it or knowing it goes on, it has been documented time after time and yet you pretend that it’s not going on.

Until you confront these people and make it absolutely clear that they do not in any way speak for you, your protests will be taken as nothing more than the terrified flailings of a party and movement in its death throws.

We are at time in this country when the shackles of racism are finally beginning to be thrown off. Yes, a black man has ascended to the highest office in the land. Yet blacks, Asians, Latinos, Arabs and many others in this country face the specter of racism every day at the hands of people like those carrying signs around at your rallies calling the President a monkey or a slave.

There is still a lot of work to do and we have all the momentum. If you continue to allow these people to hijack your agenda, history will show that you all were on the wrong side of the moral argument, no matter how good a Christian you think you are.

6. If your gripe with the Obama administration has to do with fiscal policy, where were you when George W. Bush was driving us into a ridiculous amount of debt after Clinton had somehow managed to balance the budget? Where were the protests during the Reagan administration when the national debt more than quadrupled?

I don’t understand why you throw around “tax & spend” like it’s a dirty word when a Democrat is in office (even when Clinton was balancing the budget) and yet when George W. Bush was spending more than any President before him, you didn’t say a damn thing.

7. You accuse so many of us on this side of the argument of being members of a cult of personality. You say that we believe President Obama is the messiah or some such nonsense and that we should believe in the system, not one person. Yet the number of signs in support of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Joe Wilson were overwhelming. How is that different?

It seems to me that many of us in the middle or on the left have no problem questioning the Obama administration’s policies when we don’t agree with them, yet many in your movement take every word out of the mouths of people like Beck, O’Reilly, Palin, et al as the absolute truth. To question it is to question your morality and intelligence. How is that anything but subscribing to a cult of personality?

7. Why are you so whipped up in a frenzy about Barack Obama appointing czars for various things? Why is the terminology so important to you?

Again, maybe it was my liberal professors lying to me, but I was taught that Nixon was the first president to appointed the first permanent czars to deal with drugs and inflation. Reagan really took it to the next step, appointing several czars to deal with national policy issues. Why was it all right for those two but not all right for President Obama?

Also, can you please instruct your fellow patriots with a little looser grasp of history than you and I that during the Bolshevik revolution (which ushered communism into Russia) the last Czar of Russia and his family were killed. So all those signs alluding to czars being communist are hilariously wrong.

If you’re confused, ask your kids, they’ve probably seen the Disney movie Anastasia, it outlines the whole thing.

Thanks,

Rusty

In the months and years following 9/11, there were many claims that the Bush administration was lying about various things. Some were valid (torture, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) and others that were out-right crazy (the “truther” movement, for one.)

Thousands of so-called “patriots” from the Tea Party movement and other disgruntled protesters descended on Washington D.C.

Many, I’m sure, have legitimate gripes. They don’t like the cap & trade plan, for example. But from the TV coverage (of which I watched A LOT today) and the pictures I saw from the event, it seems to me that there was a huge contingent of ridiculously uninformed, dangerous and out-right hateful people out there.

Today I watched Glenn Beck carry on for 20 minutes about how the government is corrupt. All the while, pictures from the today’s rally on the Mall flashed behind him. There were images of speakers of protestors, some showing people with pictures of Obama dressed as Hitler and signs calling the health care reform bills eugenics.

Now I know what you’re thinking, was Glenn Beck cleverly using these pictures to illustrate some of the corruption he was ranting about?

Of course not.

The images were from a grassroots* rally opposed to said corruption. Curiously, Beck never specifically mentioned what this corruption actually is, but any reasonable viewer could see that he’s simply playing the us vs. them game.

Now this rally, which Beck claimed was in response to all the anger about the corruption in our government, was attended by many Republican lawmakers and comprised almost exclusively of their supporters.

Additionally, the rally featured speakers questioning Barack Obama’s citizenship, calling him a socialist, marxist and communist and saying proposed health care reform would condemn your grandmother to death.

Forget the sex scandals. Forget Jack Abramoff. Forget the weapons of mass destruction. The most heinous corruption within the Republican party is of the intellectual type.

Their claims are so obviously false, so obviously motivated by ignorance and hatred — be that racial, partisan or based merely on the fact that his middle name is Hussein — that they should be disavowed by every right-minded American, regardless of party affiliation. Instead, these loons not only get a free pass, but are embraced and encouraged by those in power.

The only way anything will get done, the only way we will ever have a civilized debate on anything, the only way change will ever be affected in any positive way, is if these lies are met with the truth.

Instead, Republican leaders use them for political gain. They use them to motivate an ignorant, frightened base. They use it to claim that they are fighting for America’s well-being, when what they’re really doing is encouraging fanaticism to further their own interests in power and wealth.

There are always going to be fringe elements at these protests, but in the case of the “Truthers” and the “Bush and Cheney are war criminals” crowds, they hold no credibility even among the protests in which they’re partaking.

In other words, they’re our crazy cousin who sits alone at the family reunion. Nobody talks to them because they’re batshit insane, but goddammit, we share a last name.

What’s frustrating is that the protests going on today seem to embrace and encourage their crazy cousins. If you’d believe the coverage (even that on Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal,) you might think that the reasonable, sane cousins are the ones sitting alone, while the crazy people are off playing horseshoes and having potato sack races.

How long, for example, did it take for Republican lawmakers to stop trying to pass a bogus bill obviously aimed at pandering to the birthers which would force presidential candidates to produce a birth certificate?

Why are right wing talking heads still using scare tactics calling Barack Obama a fascist, communist, Marxist or Nazi? Hateful terms used with absolutely no merit or facts to back them up, intended only to frighten people and force the most visceral of reactions out of people who don’t know any better?

Side note: It is terribly frustrating that these terms are used interchangeably, when they are typically conflicting ideologies. Historically speaking, one can’t be both a Nazi and a Communist. Again, it just proves how well these scare tactics work on the ignorant.

Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and their ilk aren’t stupid people. I don’t think they actually believe that Barack Obama is a socialist. I don’t think they actually believe his health care reform plan is eugenics. What I do think is that they know how to paint a twisted, hateful picture that will frighten people who aren’t smart enough to understand the nuances of health care reform or tax policy.

Barack Obama is no more evil than George W. Bush is. Both men have their own idea of what is best for the country and they were both elected to enact those ideas. It is the opposition’s duty to oppose those policies and in a Democracy that works, they meet in the middle to effect change.

So for Glenn Beck to rail against corruption and then perpetuate the kind of intellectual corruption that is dividing our country like never before shows his true motivation.

He doesn’t have your best interests in mind. In fact, with regards to his biggest issue lately, health care reform, things he has said on camera in years past completely contradict his so-called belief that our country has the best health care in the nation. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg with him.

So what do we do?

First, we shouldn’t base our entire perception of the issues on the talking heads. Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann and their colleagues on both sides of the issue don’t know everything. Read real news from real sources and more importantly, understand where your news is coming from and what filter it is being presented through. If you are a Republican, watch MSNBC and read the New York Times, if you’re a Democrat, watch some Fox News and read the Washington Times.

It’s important to understand both sides of the issue, because no matter how sure you are that your view is the correct one, there’s a chance you just don’t have a full understanding of the facts.

Of course I know that this advice is falling on deaf ears. The whole reason political discourse has gotten to this point is because people only want to hear things in black and white.

We’ve got no room for Walter Kronkite any more, he just told us the facts and let us decide. Now, Bill O’Reilly screams talking points at us presented as “facts” and then tells us that if we don’t decide to agree with him we’re pinheads.

It’s frustrating, to be sure. We live in a scary time. All we can hope for is that those we elect aren’t as gullible and ignorant as many of those who are electing them.

* Sponsored by Fox News, FreedomWorks and a handful of other right-wing organizations.

I saw one of your billboards the other day, it said “All life is sacred, from conception to death.”

It was a nice billboard, the typography was clear and easy to read from my car. Well done.

Oh, except for one thing: the message you were trying to portray, that we should all be pro-life and anti-euthanasia, is just a tad contradictory to the battle you are currently waging against health care reform.

You see, there are 43 million uninsured people in this country, give or take. You may have insurance, so you don’t really think about it too much if you get the flu or break your leg. You just go see your doctor or head to the emergency room and it’s all taken care of.

Your 43 million fellow citizens, however, can’t go to the doctor if they get the flu. While you may pay $10 or $20 dollars per office visit, these people are responsible for the entire cost. Trust me, when you’re struggling to make ends meet, you don’t have a couple hundred bucks laying around to go see the doctor, and don’t even get me started on how much the prescription would cost with no insurance.

So you see, because uninsured people can’t afford to go to the doctor, they end up getting sicker and sicker. Statistically speaking, the uninsured live shorter, unhealthier lives than those with access to health care.

Let me say that again: UNINSURED PEOPLE DIE EARLIER THAN INSURED PEOPLE.

So, how can you, the very vocal, very well-organized minority within the Republican party, willfully ignore logic by saying that each and every life is valuable, then turn around and tell the poor that because they lack the resources, they can’t have access to the health care that could help them live a happier, healthier, longer life?

Is winning a political battle over a president you don’t like for some vague, unexplainable reason (I still think it’s because he’s black,) more important than actually adhering to your own morality? Or are you just so ignorant that you can’t understand that being so adamantly pro-life and anti-health care reform, you are holding irreconcilable beliefs?

Don’t know what irreconcilable means? It means your views on abortion and health care are contradictory.

Contradictory? No? It means someone who is pro-life is the opposite of someone who is anti-health care.

I know it doesn’t make sense, it’s because you can’t really be the opposite of yourself, right? I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that you can’t be both anti-health care and pro-life at the same time.

If you are truly committed to your belief that every life is sacred, then you must support health care reform that includes a provision for all Americans to have affordable health care.

You need to stop listening to what Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Joe Wilson and Sarah Palin and Chuck Grassley are telling you. These people are manipulating you to gain power and wealth for themselves. Think about it.

Seriously, think about it hard. Why is an unborn child’s life more valuable than those of the millions who have recently lost their jobs and health coverage in this country? Why is it worth more than the families of the unemployed? The working poor?

So what do you do?

Well, if you just can’t bring yourself to support the policies put forth by the Democrats and the president you hate so much (I still don’t get the vitriol, but that’s an argument for another day,) you could always just become pro-choice and say that no lives are valuable.

See, that works, because then you could still be pro-death penalty. Hooray!

Kindest regards,

RS

P.S. Could you please rein Michelle Bachmann in? She’s really getting scary.

If I went to the emergency room and the auditors at Blue Cross/Blue Shield decided that it wasn’t, I could be stuck with a couple thousand dollars worth of bills.

I’ve been down this road before. When I was in high school I took a puck to the foot during a hockey game and my parents had to drive me clear across town to the urgent care because they weren’t sure if a broken foot was worthy of a visit to the emergency room.

It’s been hard to miss the legions of people shouting down their representatives across the country in town hall meetings, supposedly voicing their opinions about the health care reform.

Whether you believe these protests are genuine or not is irrelevant, because these people, for one reason or another, are pissed.

Republicans, special interest groups and the right-wing media have seized on it and are stoking the fire. Of the many ridiculous claims whipping people into a fervor is the idea of so-called “death panels.”

Many of the talking point memos floating around from Republican lawmakers and insurance lobbyists claim that all surgeries, prescriptions and other medical procedures will have to be cleared by panels of bureaucrats.

Among the millions of things these people seem to not understand about the way our medical system already works is that such panels already exist. They’re called insurance auditors, claims processors and boards of directors.

Insurance companies couldn’t give a shit about your well-being, they want to provide a service and protect their profit margin and they have large groups of lawyers and accountants who use software processing algorithm after algorithm to decide whether or not a broken foot or severe dehydration (both of which I’ve visited the emergency room for) are emergencies worthy of a claim.

Now, supposing that these claims about Obama death panels being true — how would it be any different than what we have now?

For one, maybe this poor lady in California would have gotten the proper cancer treatment. Instead of getting a treatment that specialists claim would have given her the best chance to beat brain cancer (real brain cancer, not fake brain cancer like the lady from the Republican anti-health care reform ad.)

All that aside, whether you agree with the details of the current health care reform bill, there’s no doubt that some sort of reform is needed and the millions of people in this country who go through their days just praying not to get sick or hurt must have some sort of safety net, some sort of guarantee of health care.

Sadly, this issue isn’t about health care as much as it is about a vendetta against all things Democrat. For the right to shoot this down, they believe, would be to cripple President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress. The right is playing politics with the health and well-being of millions of our most vulnerable countrymen.

McVeigh was every bit the terrorist that Osama bin Laden is. The scary thing is, there are many people out there just like him and with every passing day, the same kind of rhetoric that led to McVeigh’s horrific bombing in Oklahoma City is being ratcheted up among the scariest fringes of the right wing.

The other day on the Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck Show, former CIA agent Michael Scheuer — an expert on Osama bin Laden and US-Middle East relationships — said that nothing short of bin Laden attacking the US with a nuclear device will wake us up to the reality of the danger we’re in.

“The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States — because it’s gonna take a grassroots, bottom-up pressure — because these politicians prize their offices, prize the praise of the media, and the Europeans. It’s an absurd situation again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary.”

Now, take the comment for what it is. On one hand, he’s saying we’ve fallen asleep at the wheel again, forgetting what happened to us on 9/11. He doesn’t seem to implicate any one politician or party, but rather Americans as a whole.

On the other hand, it seems to me that he’s hoping we get hit again so we can have an excuse to go after our enemies, who ever they may be.

Mr. Scheuer is no stranger to provocative comments. He’s called bin Laden a “resistance fighter” and Bill Clinton a liar (tell us something we don’t know.) So while it’s scary to watch an American sit up there and seemingly wish for another catastrophic attack on America, this is the kind of thing we should expect to hear from right wing lunatics like Mr. Scheuer.

What’s scarier is that while people like Tim McVeigh were forced to get their propaganda from underground newsletters and books written by the most deluded of conspiracy theorists, Scheuer is free to spread his message to the masses on shows like Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann’s (where he appeared in 2006.)

The difference between his appearances on the two programs, however, was that when he said something outlandish on Olbermann’s program, he was called out on his nonsensical rantings. When Scheuer said on Beck’s show that the U.S. needs to be attacked again, Beck sat there and said nothing, giving tacit approval to the nonsense that Scheuer was spouting.

Just as when Bill O’Reilly called recently-murdered abortion doctor George Tiller a killer over and over and over again, doing everything he could to incite people to action, Scheuer and Beck are doing what they can to take down the Obama administration. They think they’re patriots, cut from the same cloth as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

I’ve got news for them. The only cloth they’re cut from is the one that spawned McVeigh. Violent revolution is not the path to change, I hope Scheuer realizes this before one of his listeners makes good on his rhetoric.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HtSb7kwTFE]

Republicans seem to have been tangled up in a few more scandals lately than their Democratic counterparts. Whether it was John Ensign cheating on his wife, Larry Craig doing a homo tap dance in a Minneapolis airport bathroom stall or Mark Foley telling teenage male Congressional pages to “get a ruler out and measure it for me,” the GOP has had a rough time living up to it’s self-proclaimed title as the party of morality and family values lately.

Democrats aren’t immune to these types of scandals. Former President Bill Clinton canoodled with an intern (and a few others) and Elliott Spitzer likes the high-priced hookers.

The point is, recent scandals should show us that it’s time to separate our moral leaders from our political ones.

Now I know what you’re saying. If we no longer look to our political leaders for moral guideposts, Washington will be more out of control than it already is.

I get it, but that’s not what I’m saying.

Every one of us, whether we’re religious or not, goes through each day following a moral compass. Sometimes our values are based on a holy text of some sort, other times they’re simply a set of values handed down from our elders. Whatever the case, our laws are based on these values, and while our leaders are in Washington or the state capitol building or city hall or where ever, they should feel beholden to the laws of the land above all else.

Personal faith is great to have, but the minute that you get blinded by your convictions is the minute you start judging others for not following the same set of values that you do. Our country is based on freedom within the parameters of the law, not within the parameters of the Bible. Religious leaders in this country condemn countries like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia who enforce strict laws based on the Koran and then in the same breath argue for prayer in schools and gay marriage bans. You can’t have it both ways.

People of faith believe that when you die, you will be judged by the almighty for how you conducted yourself on Earth. So if judgment awaits Clinton, Foley, Spitzer, Ensign and the like, why should we feel compelled to judge them for their mistakes as well? When did we become Gods? When were we endowed by God with the ability to judge our fellow man?

What Craig and John Edwards have taught us is that good men who do good work in the service of the American public can let lust get in the way. How is that different than your neighbor who cheated no his wife with his secretary?

We should allow these men, who have willingly destroyed their own families and careers, to be judged by God. We should allow men — and women — to make mistakes and not throw stones when they stand before us and admit their mistakes.

Now of course this isn’t all to say that we shouldn’t hold our public servants accountable for their mistakes, I’m simply saying that as long as we continue looking to them to not only be good public servants, but to be moral leaders as well, our faith will continue to be shattered time after time as they inevitably falter.

We need to learn to look at these people as the fallible humans they are and let them make governance decisions based on reason, not on looking virtuous all the time for fear of being judged on anything but their performance as a legislator.

These men and women should be judged for what they do in the halls of our public buildings, not behind the closed doors of their bedrooms.

Next week, ABC News will cover a town hall meeting from the White House where Barack Obama plans to discuss health care. It will be a policy meeting where Obama will field questions on his proposed health care policies. Presumably, both supporters and skeptics will have a chance to speak.

Sean Hannity, among other outspoken pundits on Fox News, think this is nothing more than an infomercial for health care policies they don’t agree with disseminated by a complicit media outlet under the guise of news to a public not saavy enough to know when someone is feeding them a line. So basically, they’re accusing ABC News of being copycats.

It’s not the opinions expressed on Fox News that offends me so much, I believe there’s a place in the media for all voices, even those as disgusting as some of the garbage pettled by the likes of Beck, O’Reilly and Hannity. Government, business and social leaders need a strong, dissenting voice, and these days we’re sure as heck not getting it from MSNBC.

That said, the twisted nature of Fox News’ reports, pushing obviously biased reports off as news, twisting comments and spinning news and then turning around and calling themselves “Fair and Balanced” or telling people they’re in a “No Spin Zone” flies in the face of every principle we’re sworn to uphold as journalists. It’s fine to have an opinion, it’s fine to express that opinion, but don’t insult your viewers by misleading them.

Fox News was the originator of this style of so-called journalism and to their credit they’re very good at it. This unabashed fanboy attitude towards the Republican Party that was so evident during the Bush years and most recently during the Tea Bagging protests during tax season has served them well, but let’s be clear, they are hugely responsible for the death of journalism they’re not decrying.

They can cry about ABC or MSNBC or the New York Times being biased all they want, but they got the ball rolling. Journalism is vastly different than it was 20 years ago and that is in large part to Fox News. Now is the fact that it’s a different game now necessarily bad? That remains to be seen. But Fox News’ cries about journalism being dead, all the while playing a fiddle like some modern day version of Nero with better hair and a bleached smile, as they watch the fire they created consume the noble profession die are hypocritical at best, delusional at worst.

The fact that the journalism industry (particularly broadcast), regardless of where each outlet falls on the political spectrum, is trending towards the biased, gotcha journalism that Fox News helped develop, makes me sad for my colleagues who strive to do it right each day, and scared for my country, which will suffer the consequences.

Now, watch this video to see what I mean.

Fox’s hypocritical attack on ABC News

Check out the YouTube video here.

1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.