"Generating More Heat Than LIght"

I just got around to watching my TiVo recording of Brooks and Shields on last Friday's News Hour.

On the topic of the disruption of Health Care Reform Town Hall Meetings, Mark Shields earned honors for Best Insight of the Day when he observed that the disruptions are "generating more heat than light".

Those who are shouting down, and threatening politicians who are holding these August "recess" meetings as a way of sponsoring rational debate, so far are succeeding in changing the focus and coverage in the media to the disruptions and away from the important health care issues.

Those who are financing the travel and attendance at these forums, generally understood and known to be people who are fearful that their health care gravy train will be derailed if genuine reform is passed, are playing to the basest of human instincts of those who are most easily manipulated into saying outlandish and outrageous things via emotional outburst.

One has only to acknowledge and consider the actual and recorded rantings at these meetings by those who rely on the government managed and financed health care program called Medicare to keep them out of financial bankruptcy, that "the government should keep its hands off Medicare".

Charles Blow's column in last Saturday's Times captures the essence of this frightful phenomenon when he wrote, "Belligerence is the currency of the intellectually bankrupt". His column is worth a full read.

There is a sub culture which is easily inflamed when reminded that a black man is occupying the White House. Those who have the most to lose if health care reform happens are cynically playing to the basest of human instincts of that intellectually bankrupt sub culture, hoping to derail the democratic process of reasonable debate.


Lighthouse Keeper