On Wednesday, Barack Obama makes his next health care reform pitch to the nation. The speech will need to be a real doozy to even put a dent in the literal tidal wave of scare tactics and misinformation spewed forth quite effectively courtesy of greedy insurance companies, right-wing talk show hosts, and many Republican politicians. In fact, the tactics have been so effective that they've managed to coax a large number of normally politically uninvolved people out to protest - some quite vocally as seen at those town hall meetings. All the while, Barack Obama's popularity has been declining according to recent polls.
For me, I've found it sad and frustrating watching and listening to the protesters express their (very real) anger and fear over any change to our health care system (especially the possible "public option"). The scare tactics and misinformation worked well because folks were complaining about illegal immigrants being covered under the public option (not true), government mandated euthanasia (wtf?), and a host of other misleading or blatantly false assertions - many of them similar to the assertions shown and debunked on this website: http://factcheck.org/2009/08/twenty-six-lies-about-hr-3200/
If that wasn't bad enough, the misinformation campaign helped bring out the right-wing fringe, gun toting, government hating, Timothy McVeigh wannabes to the town hall meetings as well.
To have any kind of success against the right-wing propaganda machine such as most anything broadcast on Fox News or written about on websites such as the insanely radical World Net Daily, the Democrats need to grow a spine and fight for real health care reform like they've never fought before. This country needs to quit being so damn selfish and start taking care of it's citizens.
