Debate or the Texas Two Step?

While the blogosphere and emags have been decrying the nature of conservative discourse on the healthcare “debate,” the mainstream media has again shown its ineptitude at doing much more than reporting what other people say (he said, she said syndrome gone wild). The New Republic weighs in today on the absurdity that has become conservative discourse on healthcare, essentially centered around scaring the old, the disabled and anyone who isn’t really paying attention:

“We're stuck in what Josh Marshall has called a "nonsense feedback loop"--a conversation in which Zeke Emanuel wants to kill grandma, health care reform is bad for the people who can't get health care, and Stephen Hawking has been snuffed out by the British National Health System. Instead of arguments that are unrelated to reality, we're getting arguments that are the very opposite of reality.” (http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_treatment/archive/2009/08/12/the-swiftboating-of-health-reform.aspx)

Just like the 2000, 2004 and 2008 campaigns, too much of what comes out of the lunatic fringe becomes conventional wisdom with too much of the voting public ((http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/08/from_tpm_reader_cs.php). In 2000, Gore was a liar, based on, well, lies. Then the recount centered around a public restless for a result, that was really just restless of hearing how restless they were. In 2004, the swift boat veterans for truth spread lies like most of us spread butter on toast – but the media including the “liberal” New York Times played along, while finding the truth with a minor lie (in the Dan Rathers coverage of Bush’s suspect service during Vietnam) became a media maelstrom. In 2008, the socialist story line garnered less popular support, but still boiled at the edges of the political penumbra. And now, with healthcare reform, we have moved to the truly absurd spectacle society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle).

Can we have reasoned debate in America today? The answer appears to be no. Instead the lunatics and hardliners on the right take up far too much of our time, while the reasonable are attacked, marginalized or completely ignored. Why do we allow this to happen? Could it be that we are too busy updating our twitter and facebook accounts, watching movies and tv and trying to figure out how we missed out on the boom of the early twentieth century and how exactly we should take the “good news” on the economy. Or could it be that a country that has celebrated anti-intellectualism for far too long just doesn’t have the energy or critical faculties to really consider the issues? Maybe we just can’t figure out the difference between lies and truth or fiction and reality anymore. It appears that the postmodern reality has taken hold like never before.

P.S. Who are these right-wingers disrupting the President's town hall meetings? Here's one: http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2009/08/12/william_kostric/print.html.