Right-wing Populists and Fascism

I heard a clip of Rush Limbaugh describing the health insurance reform being debated in Congress as Nazi-lite.  The argument: 1) it's a national plan, 2) it's socialistic; ergo: national socialism; ergo: Nazi.  But in reality, Rush and his cronies are the ones participating in a Goebbel's like propaganda attack that presents truth as lies and lies as truth.  It is most Orwellian.  I hate to draw the comparison to 1930s Germany, but the parallels are just glaringly obvious.  Right-wing ideologues using propaganda to appeal to emotions, to replace thoughtful debate with screaming rhetoric, to spread lies and rumors as if they were scientific truths, to spread hate, ultimately, to gain power.

Given the Right's supposed distaste for Big Government, I suppose we aren't in danger of a true Nationalist-Socialist (right wing) take over (although, I suppose I should be less sure of myself after the previous 8 years), but what I am more disturbed by are the possibilities of Russian-style pogroms led by right-wing, Christian fundamentalist terrorists.  Quite frankly, I don't think we are all that far from genocide, given the rhetoric.

The political climate now is a major crisis in the development of American democracy, though it is somewhat reassuring that we've seen similar crises over the course of our history and we tend to emerge okay, if not better than we were before.  The problem is that the Democratic Party, and more generally, the left, is not reacting more strongly to the hijacking of the national debate.  We need Obama to pull a Nixon, of sorts: give voice to the Silent Majority.  Why isn't there a major campaign to put a stop to the lies?  To organize the masses that were polling strongly for single-payer, but have now been drowned out?  Why isn't the left mobilizing?  Why have we become complacent?  

I heard Ralph Nader on Democracy Now! recently, and he was comparing today to the days of the Civil Rights Movement.  He was castigating the politicians for not providing the leadership, but in reality, the history of the CRM shows that politicians are reactionaries - it is a part of the representative system.  They have always responded to the political pressures that exist in the broader society.  Kennedy, Johnson, Congress didn't make the CRM successful; the CRM was successful because of the people on the ground, in the towns and cities of America, that created a social-political culture.  In the same way, we on the left cannot be complacent and expect that now that we've elected Obama our work is done.  As he himself pointed out, our work has just begun - we need to create the conditions that will allow him/force him to do what we want.  As I've made clear, my sense of how this is done is to be advocates for our causes against the proposals of the Right, rather than critics: to build, rather than to tear down.

Healthcare and the Right-wing

I was having a conversation with a family member today and, unsurprising given the participants it went to politics and, specifically, to the healthcare debate.  Now, normally, I try to avoid talking too much to said person, because our political perspectives are quite opposite and I always feel like I am wasting my time and it gets me all emotional and flustered and angry.  And, I suppose, he's done it again, 'cause it's 1am and I can't sleep.

Contention: Rahm Emmanuel's brother said that old people are less valuable to society - he's advocating healthcare decisions based on people's value to society.

My response: I haven't heard that, but that sounds super fishey - I'm skeptical.

Counter-argument: well, he said it - you can read his words.

So, I wrestled with this the rest of the night.  It's certainly not something I would agree with, and certainly not something that anybody on the "loony-left" I've ever met would agree with.  I remain skeptical: it must be out of context, it has to be twisted around to misrepresent what he meant.  But then I feel compelled to figure it out: what is going on here?

So I hit the web (just now).  First I found this article in the Chicago Sun Times.  Okay - Emanuel defends himself; he's never advocated death panels; okay - but what got twisted?  So I searched some more . . .

And I found this message board with a link to his actual article that appears to have gotten everybody all up in arms.  If you read the posts to the message board, it is clear that either 1) the people claim to have read this article clearly, but have not; or 2) they have read the article carefully and still don't get it; or 3) they are just insane.

In the article, Emanuel is clearly dealing with very scarce medical interventions; organs, or vaccines in situations where there are way more people that need the intervention than organs or vaccines available.  It's kinda like the thought experiment we played in high school: You are in a boat with your mother, your significant other and your child.  The boat capsizes, all are knocked unconscious except for you.  You can swim to shore, but can only save one person, the others will drown.  Who do you save?  Emanuel is trying to do the same thing here.  The fact that we are saving some, means that others are going to be condemned to death.  What is the most ethical way of doing it?  Do you really propose condemning a thirty-year old person to death by refusing to give them an organ so that a 95 year-old can squeeze out another year?  Maybe I am cold-hearted.  Maybe it's because I am young.  But I'm sorry - I find Emanuel's argument compelling.

Okay - let's put aside the craziness of what is really an ad hominem attack on Rahm Emanuel's brother.  Let's say the argument is that people are not comfortable with letting the federal government make these decisions.  That it is too statist, too reminiscent of Joe Stalin's USSR.  What I notice is that Emanuel is presenting a nuanced, multi-faceted approach that is not one-size fits all, but that incorporates a number of different factors to increase the fairness of the system.  

Perhaps the biggest argument against the status quo in my book is that the decisions are still going to be made.  Somehow, someone is going to decide who lives and who dies, in this situation.  (And let's remember, it is a narrowly defined situation.)  Absent a methodical triage system, it is left up to money.  If you have the bucks, nothing else matters.  Of course, maybe that is the real fear of the radical right: perhaps they are afraid that under a different system it won't matter how much money they have, they'll actually get treated like everybody else.