Where do you get your “News”?

Some of the people who have helped form opinion on the healthcare debate apparently do not believe what they are saying.

It makes me cringe when normally reasonable people quote me something said on The Glen Beck Show. I cringe because it is just that, a show. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ed Schultz and Bill Moyers are interested in something beyond the truth. Granted Moyers is more cerebral than the rest but, he pushes an agenda like no other. No one really knows their motivation. I can tell you however, they are not really interested in hashing out the problems of the day. I think the fictional President Andrew Shepherd said it best:

            …whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.

This is not a movie or a sideshow for entertainment purposes. Healthcare spending threatens our economy and our very democracy.

A democracy depends on an educated or at least aware electorate. Do your part. Read the bill(s). Better yet, go to moderate websites like this one and ferret out some real information. Start with the Congressional Budget Office. The problem with some Americans is that they are too lazy to read the charts and graphs. They like their politics simple.  The “Liberal good, conservative bad,” absolutist approach is the easy way to take a position on any question. Just be careful who installs your label.

Asking an entertainer to label an idea is dangerous and beneath the American people. We have reached an age where popularity has been confused with wisdom and knowledge. Because an entertainer says so, some have attended town hall meetings with doctored pictures of the President of the United States sporting a Hitler mustache. Does anyone really believe Obama is/was/want’s to be Hitler? He is trying to solve a problem. He needs our help.

The President seems to be getting little help from Capitol Hill. I have a feeling there are a few lawmakers who are less certain about their absolutist approach than Glen Beck. I think, as I have blogged before, many are motivated purely by political self preservation and campaign contributions. Those lawmakers need our help too. They don’t need Hitler pictures and shouting matches. They need a real effort, on our part, to understand the issues and discuss them intelligently. They certainly won’t be helped by a citizen regurgitating the view of an entertainer who may not believe his own propaganda.