A good mob is hard to find
Paul Krugman, in his most recent column in the New York Times, has become yet one more liberal participating in the project of denouncing those who are protesting the policies of Barack Obama. To see liberals reach for their guns of derision so quickly to shoot down the form of protest that they invented is amusing, to say the least. Krugman, labels these conservative activist groups as “townhall mobs,” and he makes the typcial liberal maneuver to say that these protests are discredited by the fact that they aren’t real “grassroots” movements. I find it fascinating that liberals, who are quick to fasten themselves to theories of postmodernism, are so suddenly worried about authenticity.
After all, many of liberalism’s claims to fame (multiculturalism, moral relativism, deconstruction) are all based on a premise that authenticity is an elusive ideal that if pursued too aggressively will lead to violence and fascism. So now the cultural gatekeepers of authenticity are observing forms of social protest from conservatives and saying, “unlike our fabricated, contrived, and orchestrated social protest groups like ACORN, PETA, the Sierra Club, the ACLU, Code Pink, the AFL-CIO etc. these conservative protest groups are not legitimate, because they are fabricated, contrived and orchestrated.” If you follow this logic through to its conclusion, a reasonable observer would have to conclude that if authenticity is what gives the stamp of legitimacy to a social movement, then the major liberal movements of social protest are an exercise in inherent fraudulence.
Krugman concedes that some of these protesters appear to genuinely angry, but he can’t figure out why.
Krugman says:
There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands.
Now, people who don’t know that Medicare is a government program probably aren’t reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing.
He then concludes that these people are just being racists. I must applaud Krugman for his authentic liberalism. There is nothing more authentic than a liberal trying to read something like race into every issue.
In response to Krugman’s anecdote, where he implies that people on Medicare shouldn’t be opposed to it, I would have to suggest that this is the problem with entitlements in general. Once an entitlement becomes entrenched in society, a politician can always pull this trick on his constituents. Maybe Krugman and Gene Green should pay more cognizance to the fact that even people who are enrolled in Medicare are still opposed to it. This seems like a good question, and unfortunately for Krugman, the answer probably isn’t because they are a racist mob.
Maybe Krugman, recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, could take a look at the current budget projections for Medicare, and ask the question of why Americans would be against an expanded government role for health care. Given the fact that Medicare is an abject economic failure by all standards, one has to wonder why someone who claims an advanced knowledge of economics would be holding this program up as something that should be supported.
Ultimately this leads me to say that I am not an ardent supporter of these town hall protests. Conservatives don’t need to go shout down their representatives like a bunch of mindless liberals. I would like to hear politicians like Gene Green answer one simple question:
“Mr. Green, every year I get a statement from the Social Security Administration that tells me that Social Security and Medicare on a fast-track fiscal train-wreck. Given the undeniable fact that the federal government has proven to be grossly incompetent in managing these massive failures, why should average American citizens support an expansion of the government’s role in health care?”
If the answer to the question is the same meaningless Obama drivel that we have had to listen to for almost two years now, then maybe I undervalue a good mob.
on 
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When ACORN does it it is democracy in action. When regular folks do it it is right wing hatred.
Unfortunately going to dental school costs a family roughly $50,000 more than student loans cover. So unfortunately we are on Medical. Would I still vote to abolish every entitlement program offered by a national or state government? Absolutely.
It’s funny we hear Republicans say that they do not want “faceless bureaucrats” making medical decisions but they have no problem with “private sector” “faceless bureaucrats” daily declining medical coverage and financially ruining good hard working people. And who says that the “private sector” is always right, do we forget failures like Long-Term Capital, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Enron, Tyco, AIG and Lehman Brothers. Of course the federal government will destroy heathcare by getting involved, Oh but wait, Medicare and Medicaid and our military men and women and the Senate and Congress get the best heathcare in the world, and oh, that’s right, its run by our federal government. I can understand why some may think that the federal government will fail, if you look at the past eight years as a current history, with failures like the financial meltdown and Katrina but the facts is they can and if we support them they will succeed.
How does shouting down to stop the conversation of the healthcare debate at town hall meetings, endears them to anyone. Especially when the organizations that are telling them where to go and what to do and say are Republicans political operatives, not real grassroots. How does shouting someone down or chasing them out like a lynch mob advanced the debate, it does not. So I think the American people will see through all of this and know, like the teabagger, the birthers, these lynch mobs types are just the same, people who have to resort to these tactics because they have no leadership to articulate what they real want. It’s easy to pickup a bus load of people who hate, and that’s all I been seeing, they hate and can’t debate. Too bad.
“It’s easy to pickup a bus load of people who hate, and that’s all I been seeing, they hate and can’t debate. Too bad.”
I guess, if you are correct, they learned it from Obama and ACORN as that’s why they did/do.
And yet, in poll after poll, 80% of Americans are happy with their healthcare and doctor. If we have a one payer system how will you switch policies?
In response to Paul,
I believe the fist 6 companies that you mentioned were run down the drains by a bunch of crooks. The other 2 AIG and Lehman Brothers have been support by billions of tax payers dollars. AIG for instance held the majority of the Mortgage loans that were forced to be issued by beginning in the Clinton administration to people that could not afford the homes that the banks were forced to make loans to.
Then When the TARP funds were released AIG funneled billions to over sees banks. This all the while while the liberal Banking Committee Barney Frank denied any responsibility for the debacle.
Now back to Health Care. The all ready runs socialized medicine. Ala Veterans admin and Medicaid / Medicare. These programs have been grossly mismanged by the federal government from ALL PARTIES! However your friendly Democrats who started SS, Medicare, Medicaid and have expanded the services consistenly since inception since the FDR days have realistically raped the coffers that the aging population has been paying into to provide health care in their retirement days. The Issue is Medicare Reform the Health Care Issue is about preventing a Government Health Industry takeover! The Government has already proven itself incapable of provided cost effective services, yet want to add 34 million Americans ASAP plus 13 million illegals plus in addition to this increased burden the number of citizens that have paid into the system for the last 30-40 years and are expecting to recieve the services they were promised are now being told that the money they paid are now going to be split among these additional 47 million Americans and Non-Americans alike. The number of citizens that have paid into the system will double over the next 10 years.
Lets Recap
The system is already a Financial train wreck eating up $608 billion of the Federal Budget for 2008 (CBO)
The amount of participants will more then double in the next 10 years yet Obama is saying that the increase in costs will only be $236 Billion (less then half of the 2008 budget)?
You wonder why people are screaming? look again at the crowds
Look Closely … What do you see? You see seniors scared that they will be capped from the system. Their is genuine fear for them and their loved ones.
One more thing I dare you to pick up an Economics book As soon as the Government adds a government option to the marketplace small business will drop their employer coverage and dump millions more into an already burden system.
But Wait there is more The Community Organizer in chief just sent out an email this week to organize 13 Million community volunteers to sell the take over to the country. Why? Because his prime time commercials have back fired as he continues to lie to the American Public.
To Answer your question, the American public is tired of being lied to, the far lefts agenda has been organized and demonstrating since the Vietnam War, using the Rules for Radical protocal from Saul Alinsky’s book. So Help me to understand when a government lies to its people and creates secrecy (34 Czars with no accountability) the citizens lose faith and trust
This holds true in corporations and personal relationships. Just ask your self where did the $8.3 billion dollars just earmarked for ACORN go to?
Monty
Health Care Takover
Two comments, inter-related:
1) I don’t think Medicare was ever designed to make money, so criticizing it on those grounds seems to miss the point. The point IS to provide a health care option to those who couldn’t get it otherwise, and it meets this end to varying success. I appreciate Blogdor’s candor, but such loyalty to ideals is easy to express but less easy to carry out. If you really feel the program shouldn’t be available, then why do you take advantage of it? Perhaps because you care about health care for your family? Good reason. Maybe its not such a bad idea after all – if it really is impossible for a dental school student (substitute any position here) to get health care from another source?
2) On a related note, let’s screw all “entitlements” and forget about health care reform – at least in theory. Where do we go from here? I would be interested in hearing from people on this forum less about critiques of Obama et al.’s plan, and perhaps some alternatives – or do we feel that health care int he US is fine as is (minus medicare and medicade, apparently)?
My Dear Bloghorn,
Coming late to the dance, as usual, but I thought I’d chime in.
One thing that has irked me recently is hypocrisy of your side without recognising your own. Everybody and their pet hamster has read Rules for Radicals at this point. I think everybody is just surprised to see Super-Establishment Lacky-Fox News, who would tow the line for ANY Bush abuse come out talking about how patriotic dissent is.
It’s as if nobody on either side realises that the last 8 years have been recorded. It’s not hard to find video of conservatives talking about the dangerous dissenters. It’s a little tougher to find MSNBC video doing the same thing from the Left, simply b/c their migration to cater to lefties has really taken place mostly during the primary race 1-2 years ago.
I think we’re all just surprised to find these middle-aged southerners, heretofore thought illiterate picking up a copy of “Rules for Radicals”. And even if they’ve been literate all this time, it hardly seems like a book on the community board reading list.
I’d take issue with the swipe at moral relativism. But what’s the alternative? Would Mormons be any happier with Moral Absolutism? B/c we know it wouldn’t be your people calling the shots. So you’d demand moral relativism, so that your levels of tolerance/intolerance could be tolerated by the world at large.
You don’t seem to unpack many of your ideas. It looks to me like you throw very loaded terms around, feel like you are personally satisfied with your definitions in your own head, and then argue from them. This just makes the careful reader confused and irritated by your postings. I’ll have to explain my presence here somewhere else, I’m sure.
Anywho, just offering my rambling rebuttal, since Paul couldn’t even write his own material. (Feel free to google any portion of my entry
Chuckles
clarification: the “you” and “your” in my first sentence was meant as general, conservatism. Not aimed at yours specifically.
Cheers