We all remember the lovable “Joe” the “Plumber”, just your typical Joe Sixpack, average American, undecided about whether he was going to vote for the evil socialist tyrant or Grandpappy McCain (amazingly this swingiest of swing voters chose McCain in the end–you could have knocked me over with a feather). Well the darling star of the right-wing is long returned from his tour as a pretend journalist, and back into his role as political commentator and future Nobel Laureate (I hear he has some groundbreaking work on nuclear fission that is just going to turn the field of physics on its head).
In this edition, Dr. Joe dipped his toe into the health care debate and scribbled out his expert prescription to our health care woes on his Rx pad. Doctor script is notoriously hard to read, especially at this level of medical nuance, so I’m going to give it the color-coding treatment, which seemed popular in my recent attempt to decode Sarah Palin. So let’s do this. Irony will be in green, and crazy will be in purple. And I don’t think I’ll really need any more colors. Now come, Drinketh of his cup of knowledge:
So, when Pelosi and all those others talk about it bein’ un-American and disrespectful, I tell ya what: I respect nobody who lies to me and manipulates me and takes my money, puts my children in debt — they want me to be respectful towards ’em? Please. You know, I’m not the most civilized person. Those kind of people, I usually took behind the woodshed and just beat the livin’ tar out of ’em. I don’t like being lied to. I hate being lied to, and Americans are gettin’ tired of it.
So Joe, you hate being lied to, being manipulated, having people take your money and putting your children in debt? What exactly do you think the private insurance companies are doing now? It is an indisputable fact that they have been lying to you, playing you for a fool (and they appreciate you’ve been dutifully playing the part with Shakespearean flourish). I’m not going to re-hash in this blog how many different ways they have lied to you, manipulated you into being their little cheerleader for corporate profit, and through their policies thrown millions of Americans into financial ruin and in many cases bankruptcy (not your children yet? just wait, 2/3 of bankruptcies can’t be wrong). No, you can do your own reading, the facts aren’t hard to find, if you are actually interested in them.
I just want everyone to sit back and marvel at the irony of Angry Joey getting himself all riled up about people lying to him and playing him for a fool, for the benefit of the people who are lying to him and playing him for a fool. It is even funnier when he doesn’t get that the joke’s on him.
However, one thing that isn’t so much of a laughing matter is his call to violence to an already explosive fringe audience of lied to and exploited Americans. We already have people coming to rallies with signs saying things like “Death to Obama” and “Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids” (oddly I don’t see Sarah Palin running to the defense of Obama’s children). We already have members of Congress being hung in effigy, people being accosted, death threats against members of Congress, and people like Glenn Beck joking about poisoning the Speaker of the House.
Now we have our own self proclaimed “working class hero” suggesting that it would be alright to take Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats “behind the woodshed and just beat the livin’ tar out of ’em.” Does no one else see how dangerous this casual glorification of killing or seriously violence against elected representatives is?
Now does this mean Joe is actually going to come down off his high horse and do it himself? Of course not (even though his comments suggest he has done this to people in the past). But do statements like this, applauded by his peers and by the conservative press and right-wing members of Congress, add to a general atmosphere in which some of the more paranoid, racist and unhinged in the mob might get fired up enough that they decide to draw a gun at a political rally and do Joe a solid? That is the danger of this kind of rhetoric, and Republicans in Congress have a responsibility to condemn it and those who support it.
And last week we started seeing guns showing up at rallies. Last week we were shocked to discover that some man actually brought a loaded gun to a presidential town hall. The man also happened to be holding a sign that advocated assassinating those who he deemed “tyrants”. Amazingly he was allowed to stay, with his gun.
And so yesterday around a dozen people (that is twelve different people) brought guns to a protest outside a building where President Obama was speaking. At least two of them were armed with assault rifles. Assault rifles. So now it is common place to have small armies of angry, paranoid, delusional white men, convinced that Obama is not a legitimate president, not even an American, plus a socialist Muslim (really??) to boot, coming to events where he is to speak, with handguns and assault weapons. (While on the topic, you should read this excellent article about the resurgence of the white militia movement).
And here is the real irony. These people are claiming that President Obama is a tyrant, who is trying to take away their guns and their free speech! All the President would have to do is make a gesture and the Secret Service would haul those fanatics and their guns away, like they deserve. I’m certain the Secret Service is just itching for the word, probably even insisting that Obama let them, yet Obama has said let them be. But do we remember when Americans were actually arrested at Bush rallies just for wearing anti-Bush shirts? Do these people remember that?
How come it wasn’t tyranny and repressive government when the white president had people arrested for wearing t-shirts he didn’t like (and that didn’t even advocate violence), yet when the black president allows people to carry assault weapons PLUS signs advocating his assassination at his events, he is the one who is an enemy of liberty? And why is it that when we had a white conservative president the right-wing fanatics were content to keep their weapons at home, even though they technically *could* bring them to political rallies, yet suddenly when a black liberal is in power they feel the need to come armed to the teeth, “not to do violence” (although according to their signs, statements and death threats, that would be ok), but just “because they can”?
Hmmm…I can’t figure out the difference…
Hypocrisy is funny like that, but racism and violence is nothing to laugh at. And toward their end of killing health care reform, right-wing politicians, opinion leaders and the corporate lobbyists who control them will continue stoking the misdirected rage of these ill-informed, heavily armed mobs until someone dies. That is where this is heading. But why should they care? When the goal is to allow themselves the freedom of being able to deny people medical care, and thus sentence them to death, all for corporate greed, should we really be surprised if they would support sending people to the grave directly through inciting violence? At the end of the day, what is the difference between death by rescission and death by gun?
You didn’t really think these people were in the business of saving lives did you?
