Family Differences

My Brother Believes in Rush Limbaugh and the Like
by Charlie Leck

An older brother, who lives out in NJ, wrote me this past week, urging me to join The Tea Party.

"CHL, I know you will not agree, but our President is leading us on a very rocky road. The country is not We the People -- it is Obama, Polosi and Reed.

"We the people (Tea Party's 9-12) don't want socialism, we don't want the DNC removing our freedoms. We will start, through our vote, to change the power of Congress (RNC, DNC, Ind).

"STOP TAX SPENDING

"Hope you and Anne are doing well! Enjoy your blogs."

FL

I intended to quit at this point and just allow my brother's note to me to stand on its own. Yet, I couldn't. This is another case of someone who listens too much to Rush Limbaugh and that liar Beck and others like them. These two guys are inciting so many folks who don't use other means to enlighten themselves. These days, there are a whole host of these dishonest talking heads who know the only way they can succeed in the business is to incite normal citizens through their out and out lies and distortions. Without this kind of bombastic presentation of the news and their views, guys like Bill O’Reilly could not keep working.

Well, I'm certain that my brother is referring, in his comments above, to two legislative activities of the Obama administration, so I'll quickly deal with them.

The Corporate Bail Outs
This is a difficult issue. First, it wasn't begun by Obama. He inherited a policy from George W. Bush. It will probably, one day, be proven to be a good and correct policy -- not a pleasant or cheap one, but a good one. It has probably saved the nation from a depression that would have made the Great Depression of the 30s look miniscule. It's a tough issue and only history will show whether or not President Obama was correct to follow George W. Bush down that murky, muddy trail.

Health Care Reform Legislation
It is on the basis of what Obama is proposing in this area that my brother calls President Obama a socialist. I'll start off, first, telling my brother that Obama's proposals are far too conservative for me. My great hope was that the President would send to Congress a plan for nationalized, universal health care. Of course, the legislation that the President will ask Congress to pass is much more conservative than that. It is so tame, as a matter of fact, that one couldn't even dream of calling them socialistic.

Many of the great democratic nations of the earth have nationalized health care systems that work quite well, if not far better than the system we currently have in place. Does one dare say that the following nations are not democratic: Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg and so many more? The system that President Obama is recommending doesn't come close to being as all inclusive and sweeping as those of the nations listed above.

The United States, according to the World Health Organization, is ranked in about 27th place in the quality of the health care services it provides its citizens and in the results it achieves.

I've been down this road before and have told this tale too many times. I won't bore my readers further, but I had to present some sort of defense to my brother who is bloated with Limbaughisms.

Now, if I could get my brothers to open their minds and read some really enlightened material by solid commentators, I'd send them right to Bill Moyers and his latest comments on this subject of the crazy, radical right and its nutty commentators: Conservative Radicals and the Politics of Vengeance. I recommend it to you, my regular readers. Sadly, Moyers argues that "Intellectual Conservatism is dead." The column amounts to a conversation between Moyers and Sam Tannenhaus, the author of The Death of Conservatism.

Enough said! It would be crazy to yak on over the mind and voice of Bill Moyers.