And to Sen. John Kyle and the Republicans Stuck on "No"...

The Republican opposition to anything-Obama have marshaled just about every tactic of obstruction in every instance they can manage. They have made up facts and repeated the resulting lies as amplified scare tactics. They have created distractions-- like shouting down people trying to discuss issues in town-hall type meetings, endlessly repeating nonsensical questions about the President's religious beliefs, place of birth, secret racial agenda, secret domestic military agenda... For lack of rational grounding of questions and concerns, they have substituted fear mongering, race baiting, and lies, even to the point where pockets of people across the US have found this atmosphere fertile ground for talk of everything from bringing weapons to political rallies, to contemplating the arrest of the President at West Point, to the assassination of the President himself, to armed insurrection. And to their grave discredit, the Republican leadership fail to call this out as unacceptable, but instead ride it as a tactical wave to drive their negative agenda.

When one "Muslim" group after another claimed responsibility after Sept. 11, 2001 for any and every attack against US interests and allies, many said "Where are the responsible Muslim leaders to disavow and condemn these actions?!" It is time we put the same challenge to "responsible" Republican opponents of the President. Where are your voices to disavow the lies and fear mongering, and to call people to participate responsibly in the political arena? Instead, it seems that the "Republican Tent" has made ample room for liars, fear mongers, and simmering militias. There's no room for the "pro-choice" people, but bring in those who carry signs that paint the President as Hitler, and who speak in not so veiled, fear-fed tones about the President's death.

Yesterday in Congress, Sen. John Kyle from AZ asserted on the floor of the Senate that "polls show American's don't want this bill passed..." Again, all I can say right now is, Stop making things up for your convenience. You and your colleagues have done your best (worst) to put fear into people, with talk of "death panels" and more, to keep the status quo of a disastrous health care system in place that is driven not by health or care but by obscene profit. When you say "American's don't want this bill" I have to think, as someone once said in another context years ago "The wish is father to the thought." You have done your best/worst to try and insure that Americans fear the change that health care reform is meant to bring about.

Stop lying. Stop the fear mongering. Take care not of the interests that keep your pockets lined, but of the average citizen whose pockets are increasingly empty.

Addendum: After writing the above and doing a little "fact checking," I found the following discussion of Sen. Kyle and a number of his own instances of making-up (or ignoring) "facts." Sen. Kyle Makes it Up

Don't Give Me Your Opinion, Give me Facts

I just heard another conversation this a.m. on the radio about the current status of the health care bills in Congress (House and Senate versions), and more than once I heard the people who were talking interject the "of course we have the best system in the world" line in their conversation as if it were a twitch or a tick. It reminded me of how in some conversational styles, people interject "God bless her soul.." almost as a punctuation mark when mentioning the name of a deceased relative or good friend.

But as I have found myself saying repeatedly to my "Contemporary Social Problems" class this semester, and several others, "Don't give me unsubstantiated opinions. Give me the facts."

In fact, one of the commentators slipped in a little qualifier as he used the obligatory "of course we have the best system" tick; "It might be the most expensive, but it is the best..." he said. OK! So now we are opening up one of the cracks in the facade to see what is actually behind our ideological front.

How in fact does anyone come to the conclusion that the health care system in the US is "the best" in the world? I don't ask this as a rhetorical question simply to make the reverse argument that it isn't the best. I actually am trying to understand what are the factors (ah! the "outcomes"!) that make it "the best" in comparison to any others?

We rank, for example, around 33 in infant mortality rate; it is estimated that nearly 42,000 people each year die due to lack of health care; personal bankruptcies in the US are largely due to medical costs, and the majority of these are related to people who actually have health insurance. We are in a system where the simple outpatient care (single visit treatment) for kidney stones costs $16,000-- who knows a comparable figure for delivering a child, vs. delivering a kidney stone?! Thirty to forty million people in the US are not able to get health insurance; many who have it can't have their treatments covered since the insurance industry deems their cases "pre-existing conditions." A single prescription (1 month supply) of medication for someone on chemotherapy can run upwards of $10,000. Many many prescriptions turn out to be more dangerous than the illness they treat and are suddenly pulled from the market after months (if not years) of being touted as wonder drugs (which apparently were not sufficiently scrutinized by the chief regulatory agency).

This, I am sure, just scratches the surface of things. Again, to anyone who says "we're number one in health care" ... tell me what are the actual outcomes on which this opinion is based. I'm trying to understand, and to understand how this system should be improved.

An Experiment

This is a first attempt to embed a wave in my blog. If you have a google wave account you should see the wave below.