Silence in the Bleachers

Do you remember back two short years ago when Team Obama introduced health care reform? From the beginning, Obama was working on a modest proposal, certainly nothing revolutionary. But the ultra conservatives in the GOP went ballistic. Luminaries like Sarah Palin began spreading the lie that Obama's reform package included this thing called "Death Panels" and, through this manufactured issue, they were able to whip up grassroots support to oppose modifying the broken down system in any meaningful way.

The Death Panel ruse was concocted because the ultra conservatives didn't want their real reason for opposition to be exposed. They didn't want people to know that their opposition was based on trying to protect the bottom lines of the money grubbing insurance industry. So, we had to put up with a multiplicity of hired talking heads as they flooded the public airwaves in a concerted effort to scare as many Americans as possible.

It is ironic indeed, now that we have learned that the Obama administration has indeed created a Death Panel, that the ultra conservatives aren't raising as much as a peep. This highly secretive panel has been empowered to create hit lists of foreigners AND American citizens alike. People can be placed on the list and never know it and, even if they learn they have landed on the list, their is no recourse to get their name removed.

I simply find it exceedingly interesting that, where Death Panels didn't actually exist, the GOP/Tea Party machine (as well as some conservative Democrats) acted as if they were a real threat to members of the American public, yet, when a Death Panel is real and does provide a genuine threat to American citizens, the very same people sit silently in the bleachers.