The American Divide
The final House vote of 220 Democrats to 207 Republicans, and the Senate vote of 56 democrats to 43 republicans, with the Republicans unanimously opposed in both chambers to Obama’s health care bill, highlighted how divided partisan America is.
The vitriolic language of the Republican opponents angered by the procedural tactics deployed to pass the legislation, tactics used by Republicans themselves in the past, was reprehensible. John McCain said that Democrats had "poisoned the well" and they could expect "no co-operation for the rest of the year" from his party. The spectacle of Republican congressmen egging on protestors who shouted vile abuse at black and gay Democratic representatives who supported the legislation and the threats and vandalism to property of relatives that voted in favor of the legislation that played out across America after the bills passage is shocking.
John Boehner, the House minority leader, declared that the passage of health care reform was "Armageddon." The Republican National Committee put out a fund-raising appeal that included a picture of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, surrounded by flames, while the committee’s chairman declared that it was time to put Ms. Pelosi on "the firing line." And Sarah Palin put out a map literally putting Democratic lawmakers in the cross hairs of a rifle sight.
The stepped up security to protect some congressmen who voted in favor of the bill because of death threats is reminiscent of what happens in fascist states. Is this what America has become? Democracy in America has been undermined, actually sabotaged, by the health care debate and its passage.
"I think people have to realize what it means to say in a Democracy that ‘I will kill your children if you don’t vote a certain way’," said Tom Perriello, a first-term Democratic congressman representing southern Virginia. He is a graduate of Yale Law School who worked on national security issues and conflict resolution in areas like Afghanistan, Darfur, Kosovo and Liberia before he was elected to Congress. "What is at stake here is the sanctity of our democracy."
Obamacare, unlike Medicare, Medicaid and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s that were passed with overwhelming Republican support, was strictly a partisan Democratic piece of legislation. What happened to bipartisanship? How did extremists manage to hijack the American political parties? Can freedom loving democratic America survive with such a political divide? I for one think not. The divide must be bridged.
The vitriolic language of the Republican opponents angered by the procedural tactics deployed to pass the legislation, tactics used by Republicans themselves in the past, was reprehensible. John McCain said that Democrats had "poisoned the well" and they could expect "no co-operation for the rest of the year" from his party. The spectacle of Republican congressmen egging on protestors who shouted vile abuse at black and gay Democratic representatives who supported the legislation and the threats and vandalism to property of relatives that voted in favor of the legislation that played out across America after the bills passage is shocking.
John Boehner, the House minority leader, declared that the passage of health care reform was "Armageddon." The Republican National Committee put out a fund-raising appeal that included a picture of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, surrounded by flames, while the committee’s chairman declared that it was time to put Ms. Pelosi on "the firing line." And Sarah Palin put out a map literally putting Democratic lawmakers in the cross hairs of a rifle sight.
The stepped up security to protect some congressmen who voted in favor of the bill because of death threats is reminiscent of what happens in fascist states. Is this what America has become? Democracy in America has been undermined, actually sabotaged, by the health care debate and its passage.
"I think people have to realize what it means to say in a Democracy that ‘I will kill your children if you don’t vote a certain way’," said Tom Perriello, a first-term Democratic congressman representing southern Virginia. He is a graduate of Yale Law School who worked on national security issues and conflict resolution in areas like Afghanistan, Darfur, Kosovo and Liberia before he was elected to Congress. "What is at stake here is the sanctity of our democracy."
Obamacare, unlike Medicare, Medicaid and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s that were passed with overwhelming Republican support, was strictly a partisan Democratic piece of legislation. What happened to bipartisanship? How did extremists manage to hijack the American political parties? Can freedom loving democratic America survive with such a political divide? I for one think not. The divide must be bridged.
posted by Peter de Krassel's Custom Maid Politics at 9:20 PM
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