December 28, 2010 4:45 AM

Truth is the first casualty....

The claim that the Democratic health care law is a “government takeover of health care” is our 2010 Lie of the Year. In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama’s ambitious plan to overhaul America’s health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a “government takeover.” …. “Takeovers are like coups,” Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. “They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom.” …. The line stuck. By the time the health care bill was headed toward passage in early 2010, Obama and congressional Democrats had sanded down their program, dropping the “public option” concept that was derided as too much government intrusion. The law passed in March, with new regulations, but no government-run plan.

One of the more disturbing trends I’ve observed over the past couple years, but most noticeably this year, is the rise of dishonest and disingenuous propaganda. Don’t get me wrong; propaganda and politics go together like strippers and professional athletes. Everyone engages in propaganda. Some might call it “message discipline”, other might refer to “talking points”, but whatever name you happen to attach to the process, it’s propaganda. Though the word has some nasty, evil, and very unsavory connotations, propaganda is not in and of itself inherently evil (though the people engaging in it may well be). Everyone wants to effectively relay their message to their intended audience. How do you make that message stick? How do you fashion verbal imagery that resonates with your audience. Whether you call it “marketing”, “advertising”, or any other name, it’s propaganda.

The problem, of course, comes when an individual or group decide to twist and mangle the truth into something unrecognizable in an effort to ensure that their message resonates and sticks. 2010 should be called the Year of the Big Lie, because it was when the truth went on holiday. It should have been the year when serious issues were discussed seriously by people willing to address the truth in a serious fashion. Instead, what we got were zealots willing to parboil the truth in order to advance their narrow, angry, self-interested agendas at the expense of the truth and, by extension, the American Sheeple. 2010 was a year when screaming and irrational anger and ignorance supplanted sober reflection and reasoned conversation as the coin of the realm.

This country has serious problems- the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, two far-flung wars, crumbling infrastructure, an almost Third World health care system- that require serious solutions. Unfortunately, what we have are “leaders” who react rather than think, who believe in the patently and provably false, and who believe “obstruction” is the literal translation of “progress”. Try though I might to possess something even faintly resembling optimism, I fear that this country is on the brink of turning into the set from Idiocracy. I’d like nothing better than to be proved wrong, but based on what I see happening in Washington and around the country, I don’t think I will be.

This all reminds me of the story of a Texan caught in flagrante delicto with another woman by his wife. When confronted by his wife, the man denied having an affair, saying “Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?”

By selecting “government takeover” as Lie of the Year, PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Times’ independent fact-checking website, is not making a judgment on whether the health care law is good policy.

The phrase is simply not true.

Said Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: “The label ‘government takeover’ has no basis in reality but instead reflects a political dynamic where conservatives label any increase in government authority in health care as a ‘takeover.’”

“Government takeover” conjures a European approach where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees. But the law Congress passed, parts of which have gone into effect, relies largely on the free market:

— Employers will continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans through private insurance companies.

—Contrary to the claim, more people will get private health coverage. The law sets up “exchanges” where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don’t have it.

— The government will not seize control of hospitals or nationalize doctors.

— The law does not include the public option, a government-run insurance plan that would have competed with private insurers.

— The law gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, so they can buy their coverage from private providers on the exchange. But here, too, the approach relies on a free market with regulations, not socialized medicine.

Until and unless we’re able to discuss our problems AS THEY ARE, and discuss them truthfully, openly, and without screaming, what hope do we really have of reaching consensus, much less finding solutions? I understand anger. I can be angry at times myself, but there comes a point (and we’re there), when we need to recognize that shouting, insults, and lies accomplish nothing except dividing us one from the other. (And, yes, I recognize and admit that I’ve engaged in more than my fair share of shouting and insults…though hopefully not lies.)

No matter what side of the political fence we happen to find ourselves on, no reasonable, thoughtful person can argue that screaming and name-calling can do ANYTHING to solve problems. The late Tip O’Neill once described politics as “the art of the possible”. Somehow, we need to find a way to focus on the possible. Hiding behind the barricades of our inflexible, intractable dogma will add exactly nothing to our national discourse. We cannot solve problems when both sides would rather lobs lies, propaganda, and rhetorical bombs at one another.

I realize that there’s a high probability that I’m pissing into the wind here, which means that in the end I’ll end up soaked and stinky. Still, even I have to believe that a country founded by people willing to cross the Atlantic to a brave, new, and scary world can still find it within itself to step back and do what needs to be done.

Somehow, we need to get past the lies, the propaganda, and the screaming and focus on what’s real…because what’s real should be terrifying enough with the embellishment and the emotionalism. We need SERIOUS people who can have SERIOUS discussions about dealing SERIOUSLY with truth and reality as they are…not what someone’s “talking points” tell them they are. Until and unless Americans stand up and demand that the screaming, the lies, and the propaganda stop, the healing and the problem-solving cannot and will not begin.

Or would you really rather live on the set of Idiocracy?

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on December 28, 2010 4:45 AM.

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