(Cross posted from my blog)
Found a note in my inbox this morning from Dr. Robert A. Letcher. For those with short memories, he is the gentleman with Parkinson's disease who so enraged a group of Tea Party protesters in Columbus, Ohio recently by daring to sit on a curb in front of them holding a sign that said, "Got Parkinson's? I do, and you might. Thanks for helping. That's community." The Tea Partiers were SO outraged by this silent and dignified counter protest that they screamed at him, threw wadded up money at him and otherwise taunted him and his condition.
Apparently he is still receiving grief for his actions.
Dr. Letcher has written to this blog before, and I'm very grateful that he chooses this venue to help spread his word.
Here's his latest message.
Ten Questions for T-People,
from a Parkie whom some of them heckled
at a healthcare rally last month in Columbus, Ohio
by Robert A. Letcher, PhD
April 2010
Ten reactions to T-people, in the form of questions I’ve gleaned from reading through hundreds and hundreds of comments critical of my sitting down with my sign...
First, how would you feel about having your integrity challenged over whether you do or do not suffer from a nasty, debilitating, incurable, deadly disease?
Second, duh! What else would a person go to a demonstration FOR, other than to demonstrate and attract media attention. (BE HONEST: Isn't that why YOU go?)
Third, exactly how did little, old me compel all those self-righteousness powered T-people to behave so badly, so that the media could "cast them in a bad light"?
Fourth, when you characterize my views as "biased", aren't you simply asserting that my thinking differs from yours, which you simply, and again, self-righteously assert is "THE truth", without citing any reasons that might contribute to democratic discourse instead of demagoguery.
Fifth, wouldn't a "lib" just be someone who "loves his neighbor as himself"--- and what's so wrong with that? If I’m not mistaken, it’s part of your Jesus’ own answer to the question, "Who would Jesus love."
Sixth, if you place your beliefs beyond question, how can you be so sure they are right?
Seventh, if you strip words of their history to the point of describing President Obama as a socialist, AND as a Communist, AND as a Fascist—but rarely as a Progressive Democrat who happens to have been democratically elected President—how can you expect people to take you seriously?
Eighth, how can you act so angry and unaware on the world’s stage (it’s not yours or ours anymore—so you can’t just take it home), yet hope not to be dismissed as ugly Americans who can no longer think well and creatively enough to compete in anything except war games made with real wars?
Ninth, was there ever a time when you T-people constructively channeled what you now spew as anger?
Finally, as history is full of the ruins of self-proclaimed "Thousand-Year Reichs", how can you be so sure that your actions are not dragging the country you claim to love into the Dustbin of History to join them?
PS: I had no idea when I referred to T-People as T-baggers that some people use "T-bagger" to refer to a gay sex-act. Had I known that, I likely would have found another way to refer to people who bedeck themselves in T-bags. I would do so, NOT because I accept claims that such a term is derogatory just because it refers to gay sex; rather, because I think that sarcasm is, to appropriate Chaucer’s words "a dish best served cold". And even after some critique told me what "T-bagger" supposedly referred to, I still didn’t understand.
If I may add a few words of my own...
Dr. Letcher, these are not people who respond to reason. Most folks are motivated to act by one of two things -- those which cause them pleasure, and those which cause them fear or pain. These people are motivated by fear. They listen to their right wing noise machine and they accept its lies without bothering to check the veracity of those lies. And when the lies are -- at length -- shown to BE lies, then the person who is disproving the lie must NATURALLY be part of Obama's Nazi Socialist Communist Fan Club.
If these people were motivated by reason, they would not be holding rallies that, if they get what they are asking for, will result in cutting their own throats. They want "smaller government" and "no government health care" but they LOVES their Medicare and Social Security and Disability Payments and Clean Water and Safe Foods and the agencies that ensure their medicines and medical treatments are safe.
All they know is the well-modulated voices they trust, Limbaugh, Beck, Savage, Hannity and others -- as well as the pretty blonde girls on Fox are telling them their worst fears are TRUE! Obama MUST be a Kenyan-Indo-Canadian with dual British citizenship who secretly wants to destroy the fabric of American society and put dissenters in FEMA death camps (presumably where Palin's "Death Panels" will hold court) because... THEY SAID SO! TRUTH BE DAMNED! TRUTH IS PART OF THE LIB CONSPIRACY!
Like you, I wish they'd open their eyes and see that they are being used as tools by astro-turfing millionaires who understand that if the public sees wealthy folks protesting, they're not as likely to feel much compassion for them. But if you whip up the uninformed masses into a froth of fear -- fear over "the other" in the White House, fear over him RAISING YOUR TAXES (even though those pesky facts show income taxes have been cut since Obama took office), convince them that "Fighting for their Freedom" from this "Gangster Government" with its Hitleresque leader is the PATRIOTIC and NECESSARY thing to do -- and you know these folks either are too dim or too lazy to check the facts for themselves... and you have a WHOLE TV NETWORK at your disposal to spread your lies unfiltered...
Well. You got yourselves a movement!
I thank you again, sir, for using my blog as your conduit. And I invite you to write again, any time.
With Much Respect,
Bill
PS -- Thanks for putting this on the rec list. But I'm deflecting the love to Dr. Letcher. OK, I'll keep a little of it. :)