One step forward, two steps back

July 27, 2009

By: David Phillips

Yoda’s World

I watched one of my all time favorite movies this past weekend from years gone by: "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" where Jimmy Stewart fights the Big Powerful Media in his State (from the Senate floor) that controlled the newspapers the radio and the politicians in his State...Seems in many ways that that which is old in politics works as well today as it did 60 years ago, the only things that have changed are the technologies in communications and the scope and reach of today’s media organizations.

I’ll tell ya, watching that movie helps one to remember what is truly great about our country and our democracy. It also shows how big media can control and shape the perspectives of any issue with the voting public.

Speaking of controlling the perspectives of the voting public, I have a very bad feeling about any quality healthcare program coming out of Congress, I can feel the lobbyists controlling the conversations and the politicians, just as if all of congress is a puppet and the lobbyists are pulling the strings, which they are. 350 health care lobbyists descended upon Washington DC a couple of weeks ago, and between them and the right wing spin machine, things are not looking good.

And I blame President Obama for not getting out in front of this issue from the get go, it seems that after he held his round table talks with various health care industry reps during his first few weeks in office then he just stepped aside and left it up to the Democrats in Congress who seem to have their heads up their collective asses...President Obama is now saying it's no big deal that nothing will have been passed before the August recess.

President Obama and the DNC are finally using their bully pulpits to call out Democrats and Republicans...The DNC has started to run ads in the districts of 10 Democrats talking about health care and where their representative stands...I just fear it may be too little to late...But I hope I’m wrong.

Anyhow, now President Obama says he's OK with the progress as long as we are moving the conversation forward and he says he's OK with a Bill before the end of the year, I am also fine with that, but it is President Obama who is putting his rear end on the line if nothing gets done by the end of this year...

And finally, “Birthers’ those that refuse to accept that President Obama is an American are demanding that they see President Obama’s birth certificate. Am I the only one who finds it a little off color that the right wing “Birther” fringe dwellers (the same group who think President Obama is a Muslim) have never had a problem with the previous 43 US Presidents birth certificates until a BLACK President was elected?

Two years ago Obama made his birth certificate available to the WORLD, he posted it on line,  made it available to numerous news organizations which  verified its authenticity, even the far right web site World Net Daily posted it on their web site saying that it was indeed real...SCOTUS even told these nut jobs that there are NO question...

But that’s not good enough for these whack jobs, now the BIRTHERS say that even his birth certificate is false...This "controversy" is a manufactured one...There is NO controversy, there is no question...What there is, is HATE and IGNORANCE from these whack jobs...The GOP leaders for the most part continue to fuel these whack jobs by not coming out and denouncing their lunacy which just makes the GOP look complicit in fueling their hate and ignorance.

This is a far right twisted controversy that has no merit...It was Obama who first made the decision to make his certificate available and do you know why, because right wingers were saying his middle name was Mohamed and Obama wanted to clear that up, that it was not Mohamed but Hussein.

There were 8 Democrats and 11 Republicans who were running for President and can you guess how many of them made their birth certificates available to the world?...The black guy running made his birth certificate available and not a single White candidates did.

One step forward, two steps back.