REALITY CHECK? From the WHITE HOUSE?

I just listened through the eight speeches at the "reality check" link my friend sent me, that purport to correct what the White House labels as misinformation about the Health Care Proposal. The gist of the messages is that it's just bad people making stuff up against the good Health Care proposal, just "the same old people" who don't want to see Health Care reformed.

Why anyone would not want Health Care reform isn't mentioned -- what's the motivation? but nameless bad people are accused of simply just not wanting it for no good reason. Oh, maybe because they have some meaningless idea about "socialized medicine."

Who are the stupid ones here?

Obviously reform is needed, but people are concerned about THIS health care reform, and it seems to me they are RIGHTLY concerned.

The WH representatives are insinuating something irrational, when it sounds to me like there are many legitimate questions AND THEY ARE BASED ON WHAT IS ACTUALLY WRITTEN IN THE HEALTH CARE PROPOSAL.

Yes, people could be getting things wrong about it, but THE WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMEN SPEAK IN GENERALITIES, TELLING US WHAT THEY WANT TO SEE COME OUT OF THIS HEALTH CARE PROPOSAL, THEY DO NOT SHOW US WHAT IS ACTUALLY IN THAT PROPOSAL. THEY DO NOT QUOTE IT. THEY'RE GIVING US ALL RHETORIC, NO ACTUAL FACTS.

GO LISTEN TO IT YOURSELF, FIND A FACT IN IT FROM ANY OF THEM. THERE AREN'T ANY. There are plenty of DECLARATIONS that such and such is fact, but no actual facts themselves. (If you aren't sure what's a fact and what isn't, run it by me, I'll happily explain it to you).

If people are wrong about this proposal, we aren't going to find that out through empty rhetoric, and this note of accusation of the PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES for raising meaningless objections, that is coming out of this Reality Check page, only adds to the reasons to distrust them.

They promise us everything: They promise Medicare will not be cut; they promise Vet benefits will not be cut; they promise that the elderly will not be deprived of necessary care; they promise doctors will be paid in accord with their expertise; they promise you can keep your own insurance plan if you like it, etc., etc., etc. They promise you everything, but, again,

There is NO discussion of the actual written provisions in the bill that would demonstrate whether these things are ACTUALLY spelled out in it, or how it's going to be financed, OR if it's even POSSIBLE to provide for all that, given economic and medical realities.

EVEN WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS IN THE WORLD, SOME THINGS ARE SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE. Why do we have a health care problem anyway? PARTLY because some things are simply not possible economically, not because "some people" don't want us to have decent health care.

They are certainly right to point out that the current health care situation is not as good as we'd like it to be, BUT THEY ARE NOT GIVING EVIDENCE THAT THIS PARTICULAR REFORM IS GOING TO BE BETTER FOR ALL OF US. Maybe it will be better for some, but much worse for others. How is this going to be discovered when we aren't given the actual facts?

IT'S ALL EMPTY RHETORIC, ALL WISHFUL THINKING.

DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT A FACT IS ANY MORE? WHAT EVIDENCE IS? IS THERE A SHRED OF RESPECT FOR THE CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY LEFT? FOR GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE?

Here's the White House Reality Check link again.

Health Care Reform and Big Brother continued.

I sent an email out about my experience of having a news video removed from my blog post the other day, which said roughly the following:

Anybody out there experiencing mysterious internet interferences lately? I've heard of others -- conservatives -- who have been. A few days ago I couldn't access my Yahoo email account and kept getting a strange excuse for an explanation, but I think it is very possibly because I had just emailed something about this healthcare insanity and am now on Big Brother's list. OR maybe it's just a technical glitch but . . .

I just embedded a perfectly mainstream (CNN) video at my blog -- no hidden information there but they only want THEIR view of it all to be reported? -- and it won't function, appears to have beeen removed, leaving a big red square in its place. A couple paragraphs I wrote after it about how American freedoms are being trashed disappeared too. Maybe it's just a technical glitch but . . .

COULD just be a technical glitch, sure, but we conservatives know that we have REAL enemies out there who don't believe in American freedoms and are very willing to censor and oppress ordinary American citizens.

I think people could very well start disappearing soon. Yep, I think this government is that evil. Those swastikas going up here and there are no doubt bad form, certainly in bad taste, and they are being misrepresented against us too, but they do represent the mentality of these thugs.

Maybe you won't begin to see it UNTIL people start disappearing, but I sure hope there are still liberals out there who can and will yet wake up.

I'd love to find out that this is merely paranoia, and of course "they" would make it out to be that in any case, but there have been threats of an internet crackdown on conservative blogs, blog servers actually threatening to shut some down. People are being told to report hostile remarks about the healthcare mess to the President against every tenet of civility and specifically against the US Constitution, but they don't care about American freedoms. We're almost a third world dictatorship now, so NOTHING should be put past them. At least one conservative blogger on my list couldn't access her email at all for a couple days

If they are red-flagging certain words that occur in emails you can bet this one is going to be red-flagged. Never thought you'd be living under the KGB or the Gestapo in America, did you?

COULD all just be rumors and glitches. How can one find out?

I got some emails in agreement but also got this back from one friend:

I haven't read the proposal -- if I did I wouldn't understand it well enough anyway -- so I can't offer any critique (I wonder how many of us can). At any rate, here it is [the White House's debunkery of the arguments against it]:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

This is my answer:

I don't understand it either, all I know is that conservative blogs are buzzing about how the government is not telling the truth about what the healthcare bill will really do, and this is what is causing the protests at the town meetings. The protestors are being falsely called a "mob" although their behavior is perfectly orderly, and also misrepresented as simply wanting to hold on to the status quo, a rather strange accusation since medical care isn't in such great shape now either, but people don't want to lose whatever benefits they do get from it compared to what the new bill may take away from them. But this misrepresentation is repeated at the link you give. It doesn't look like they are doing any more than repeating the party line.

The fact is many honest citizens believe they have good reason to protest an economically and medically dangerous proposal. There is also supposedly a hot line for people to complain to the President himself about anyone who speaks against the bill, which if true is a very sinister development, and some bloggers have also complained that their blog servers have been threatening them over their political content on this subject. It's true I haven't researched this myself and I hope the facts will sort themselves out eventually.

The extreme rush and the bullying that is going on in the drive to push this enormous unwieldy bill through before anyone has a chance to assess it properly is also a very bad sign.

All I know personally is that when I used the CNN-supplied code to embed a standard news video at my blog, of a man complaining at a town hall meeting, it was jerked away from my blog never to reappear, leaving a big red blank in its place, and its removal also took out a few paragraphs of my own about violations of American freedoms I could find absolutely no way of reinstating. That was an extremely disconcerting experience.

I'll pass your link on to those who are more embroiled in this than I am, however, and see what they have to say.

Thanks for taking the time to look it up.

I've now looked at more of the "debunkery" information at the link. Yes, it's just the party line. They accuse the "health industry" of trumping it all up etc. My experience is that it's just ordinary people getting upset about what they understand to be in the bill. And even if some of it is from insurance companies, and particularly doctors, shouldn't their input matter? The White House's simply telling people they're wrong without a careful discussion of the facts is NOT going to reassure them and it shouldn't. The complaints against this bill do involve apparently objective information. And it is a huge bill. Time should be taken to be sure it is what it should be.

WHAT'S THE BIG RUSH?

The rush itself is reason to be suspicious of it.