America's Uncivil War
As the debate over health care reform appears to reach the home stretch, one wonders how historians will look back on what has proven to be a sordid chapter in American political life. There were news reports the other day that Rick Perry, the Texas Republican governor, was so incensed at the prospect of a government-run health care option that he mentioned the possibility of having the country's second largest state secede from the union. Political grandstanding aside, the governor's remark has reminded us of a sobering truth: nearly 150 years after the end of the war between the states, America is still fighting the same old battles - and some are now being fought by the elderly.
The bizarre spectacle of the town hall meetings this summer where angry, aging, right-wing activists railed against the health care reform plan of nation's first African-American president was a telling piece of political theater. We live in a country where pensions have disappeared, where savings have been liquidated and where social supports for the health and well-being of those entering their golden years have evaporated. This tragic situation is primarily due to the gross mismanagement of the government by Republican politicians who held the reins of power for the last 8-10 years. Now these same political actors, many of whom have their campaign coffers filled with contributions from the insurance industry, have been busy scaring the nation's aging population, stirring a rancid brew of fear and tacit racism. The legions of gray-haired conservatives were turned into shock troops this summer in what is certainly the most important social reform battle since the civil rights laws of the 1960s.
It is, admittedly, rather sickening to see the patricians of the Grand Old Party, whose forebears did everything in their power to stop the federal government from enacting social security in 1935 and Medicare in 1965, now frightening the country's elders into believing that the current government is run by a socialist black man, hell-bent on taking over their health care and destroying what little security they have left.
The war between the states was a fight over slavery and over the refusal of the federal government to cede sovereign power to the states. Today's Republicans, who never tire of warning the nation of the evils of the federal government, don't, as a rule, think very far. Never tiring of calling themselves "the party of Lincoln" they count on the fact that the American people won't bother to consider how Mr. Lincoln gave his life for one principle and one principle only: the primacy of the federal government. They count on our ignorance.
As the debate over health care reform appears to reach the home stretch, one wonders how historians will look back on what has proven to be a sordid chapter in American political life. There were news reports the other day that Rick Perry, the Texas Republican governor, was so incensed at the prospect of a government-run health care option that he mentioned the possibility of having the country's second largest state secede from the union. Political grandstanding aside, the governor's remark has reminded us of a sobering truth: nearly 150 years after the end of the war between the states, America is still fighting the same old battles - and some are now being fought by the elderly.
The bizarre spectacle of the town hall meetings this summer where angry, aging, right-wing activists railed against the health care reform plan of nation's first African-American president was a telling piece of political theater. We live in a country where pensions have disappeared, where savings have been liquidated and where social supports for the health and well-being of those entering their golden years have evaporated. This tragic situation is primarily due to the gross mismanagement of the government by Republican politicians who held the reins of power for the last 8-10 years. Now these same political actors, many of whom have their campaign coffers filled with contributions from the insurance industry, have been busy scaring the nation's aging population, stirring a rancid brew of fear and tacit racism. The legions of gray-haired conservatives were turned into shock troops this summer in what is certainly the most important social reform battle since the civil rights laws of the 1960s.
It is, admittedly, rather sickening to see the patricians of the Grand Old Party, whose forebears did everything in their power to stop the federal government from enacting social security in 1935 and Medicare in 1965, now frightening the country's elders into believing that the current government is run by a socialist black man, hell-bent on taking over their health care and destroying what little security they have left.
The war between the states was a fight over slavery and over the refusal of the federal government to cede sovereign power to the states. Today's Republicans, who never tire of warning the nation of the evils of the federal government, don't, as a rule, think very far. Never tiring of calling themselves "the party of Lincoln" they count on the fact that the American people won't bother to consider how Mr. Lincoln gave his life for one principle and one principle only: the primacy of the federal government. They count on our ignorance.
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