I’m not an American, so I feel a little uneasy at sticking my nose into what is essentially an internal issue for the US to sort out.
It shouldn’t concern me. But it does.
It’s not so much the details of Obama’s proposed plan, or the impact the current system has on the US economy.
I’m not qualified to comment on either of those.
It’s the vitriolic distortion of facts that I see consistently being presented by conservatives who oppose the plan. Any plan.
And by ‘conservatives’ I include the Main Stream Media.
I linked last week to an article in which Stephen Hawking totally debunked a statement by the Investor’s Business Daily that he would have been allowed to die by the UK’s National Health Service.
He lives in England and, if it were not for the National Health Service, he would be dead. (His words, not mine).
Even the publication’s correction did everything it could to avoid recognising reality by apologising for implying that Hawking did not live in the UK.
Not a peep about Hawking’s statement on the NHS.
I do a lot of work on Twitter and there’s one particular individual who’s seriously conservative – by all appearances more so that Dick Cheney – who regularly posts messages like this:
“… CONVERSATION? What this President needs besides a religious experience is a THESAURUS! ...” (this was in relation to the debate on health care).
But who positions himself in his profile like this:
“…Just like Joe Friday, I’m looking for the facts … when they are fairly and honestly presented; truth will take care of itself…”
Anyone not see the disconnect..!?
I’m a fan of Obama. I’ve read two of his books and I instinctively support his position on health care, even though I don’t understand the full details.
But the rabid right wing scare mongering on his health care proposals worries me.
It’s exactly the kind of hysterical distortion of the truth in pursuit of a specific agenda that led the US into Iraq and made the world less safe than it was.
That’s why I’m concerned.
