Persecution Politics: Slavery Reparations and "Health Redistribution"

Yesterday, I blogged about Sarah Palin's fear of "death panels" (which sounds like some kind of Indiana Jones booby trap, you know the kind that always impale his intemperate Indian/Arab assistants). In the post, I quoted from the Christian Anti-Defamation Committee website which in turn quoted from an Investors Business Daily editorial. Did you know that the IBD is a hotbed of right wing paranoia? In addition to a piece called "How House Bill Runs Over Grandma," they have another one entitled, "Reparations By Way Of Health Care Reform." "Reparations" refer to slavery reparations.

Here's the opening:

Still believe in post-racial politics? Read the health care bill. It's affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color. President Obama is on the record as being officially opposed to reparations for slavery. But as with other issues, you have to sift through his eloquent rhetoric and go beyond the teleprompter to get at what he really means.

What Obama really means, according to our smart investor friends, is that he wants to pass a health care plan that disproportionately benefits black people as a way of offering stealth slavery reparations. Yes, you read that right. Obama is going to steal white folk's health care because he's secretly mad that their ancestors enslaved black folks.

The racial grievance industry under health care reform could be calling the shots in the emergency room, the operating room, the medical room, even medical school. As Terence Jeffrey, editor at large of Human Events puts it, not only our wealth, but also our health will be redistributed.

I love the "racial grievance industry" language. I picture an aggressive salesman with a catalog of grievances that he wants to sell you. "200 years of servitude, on sale today! Buy now and get 50 bonus whippings and a lynch mob." Sign me up. We Jews are total grievance mongers. And can I get some of that quality redistributed health with that?

OK, so maybe Investor's Business Daily is not the world's main source for political news. It's not like one of those popular talk show hosts is spewing this crap.

Except maybe for Glenn Beck:

Everything getting pushed through Congress — including this health care bill — is transforming America. And it's all driven by President Obama's thinking on one idea: reparations... He believes in all the "universal" programs because they "disproportionately affect" people of color. And that's the best way, he feels, to right the wrongs of the past. These massive programs are Obama brand reparations or in presidential speak: leveling the playing field.

On the plus side, Sarah Palin hasn't gone there yet.

I leave you with the always astute Daily Show...

Thanks to seashell and wendy davis of TPM Cafe for the IBD and Daily Show video tips.

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