In America, Crazy Is a Preexisting Condition

[kentuck]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/14/AR2009081401495.html?sid=ST2009081402964

<snip>
In Pennsylvania last week, a citizen, burly, crew-cut and trembling with rage, went nose to nose with his baffled senator: "One day God's going to stand before you, and he's going to judge you and the rest of your damned cronies up on the Hill. And then you will get your just deserts." He was accusing Arlen Specter of being too kind to President Obama's proposals to make it easier for people to get health insurance.

In Michigan, meanwhile, the indelible image was of the father who wheeled his handicapped adult son up to Rep. John Dingell and bellowed that "under the Obama health-care plan, which you support, this man would be given no care whatsoever." He pressed his case further on Fox News.

In New Hampshire, outside a building where Obama spoke, cameras trained on the pistol strapped to the leg of libertarian William Kostric. He then explained on CNN why the "tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of tyrants and patriots."

<snip>
So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are "either" the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.

....more

[leftstreet]

1. The Democrats and the Administration deserve every last bit of this

They could have prevented this circus, but they didn't want to.

Where were the Wall Street Bailout town halls?
Where were the Af-Pak escalation town halls?

Anybody?

:shrug:

[FiveGoodMen]

4. "Where were the Wall Street Bailout town halls?"

Boy, you got that right!

When they really want something done, they just do it.

If there's any resistance, they claim the sky will fall within minutes unless they get their way.

We don't have single payer -- and aren't giving it serious consideration -- because our legislators don't want us to have it. (Because their bosses don't want us to have it)

Government of, by, and for the goddamned corporation!

[Cleita]

2. Imagine, if we had universal health care, those people could get the

meds they need and a nice padded cell.

[valerief]

3. No Child Left Behind when it comes to crazy. nt