Priorities, Incivility, Corporate Justice, Race and Joe Wilson

In what is becoming an infamous moment, South Carolina Representative Joseph Wilson blurted out "You Lie!" during President Barack Obama's live televised message to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday evening, September 9, 2009. President Obama was passionately urging Congress to reform health care in the United States and end business as usual in connection with America's broken health care system. While Representative Wilson's outburst has been roundly condemned by both Democrats and Republicans, and while Wilson has apologized for his outrageous act of incivility, much deeper issues underly this unprecedented outburst.

First, as has been discussed on this blog previously, the effort to reform health care in the United States has stoked amazing incivility and premeditated outrage in town hall meetings across the country. Radically false and irresponsible attacks (i.e., death panels, nazi germany, government takeover, etc.) have been levied against those promoting reform.
Representative Wilson's outburst fits neatly into this tactic of incivility and the seemingly preferred course of misinformation, outrage and shouting, over reasoned debate and open discussion. This outrage, fanned by corporate interests, is particularly mystifying to me.

Perhaps the mystery can be explained by the priorities of those that either are truly outraged or those that simply feign outrage. Some that decry reforming health care because it will add to the federal deficit and that reform simply cannot be paid for are those same individuals that voted repeatedly to fund a war and cut taxes during the Bush administration. The Obama administration inherited unprecedented federal deficit levels based primarily on less revenue being collected (tax cuts) and increased spending (war costs in Iraq).

In an extraordinarily honest moment, the Wall Street Journal admitted as much:

"We've never fretted over budget deficits, at least if they finance tax cuts to promote growth or spending to win a war. But these deficit estimates are driven entirely by more domestic spending and already assume huge new tax increases." -- Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2009.

Government deficits are fine, according to the Wall Street Journal, if they fund the right economic priorities. Clearly, tax cuts and war spending are fine, deficits be damned. Just as clearly, domestic spending is not fine, particularly if it seeks to insure all Americans. Critics of health care reform that decry new spending are the same stewards that approved unprecedented federal government deficits so long as they funded tax cuts and a war. Deficit spending debate is about nothing, if not divergent priorities.

Second, when President George W. Bush delivered "State of the Union" addresses and speeches to joint sessions of Congress, long after his "weapons of mass destruction" justification for going to war in Iraq were debunked as false and pretextual, no member of Congress ever deigned to shout out "You Lie!" to a President that obviously had. What motivates a member of Congress to engage in the most reprehensible bout of incivility when a President is promoting health care reform (saving lives, insuring American citizens) that did not motivate a reprehensible bout of incivility when a President was promoting an immoral justification for going to war (ending lives, soldiers dying, etc.)? The seedy underbelly of Wilson's outburst and much of the motivation in town hall outrage is race and racism.

The first time a Congressperson ever shouts out "You Lie!" to a U.S. President speaking to Congress was when an African American president was addressing Congress and the outburst was by a white, conservative Congressman. In my mind, this is no coincidence. The outrage at town hall meetings and the cry from some in attendance linking President Obama to Nazi Germany and Hitler is no coincidence. Some Americans are having a lot of trouble coming to grips with a black President.

Finally, will the Insurance Company Regime, the very embodiment of Corporate America and the great American Corporation, allow true health care reform? The opposition has been breathtaking. The pressure applied by lobbyists to Congresspersons has likely been intense. A President seems to have steeled for the battle. The outcome is not clear, and to paraphrase Frederick Douglass, the entrenched will not give up power unless it is wrested from their icy grip.