The Revolution Will Be Twitterized

Posted by Robert Zimmer on 06.22.2009

As right-wing conservatives try to steal the presidential election in Iran, right-wing conservatives try to defeat health-care reform in America.

History not only repeats itself, but it often unfolds in parallels, within different countries at the same time.

This past week, Iranian president Ahmadinejad rigged his own re-election. The fraud was sanctioned by the Iranian Supreme Leader (where do they get these titles?) Khamenei, who is Ahmadinejad's puppet master cleric. The Iranian people took to the street in massive protest, unleashing the virtual weaponry of Facebook and Twitter to sidestep the heavy-handed attempts by the ruling old men to silence them.

Here at home, another group of out-of-touch fossils dug in their heels too. Republicans have been Tweeting and trash-talking in unison on every media platform, repeating the same propaganda – a public health care option is a non-starter, and will drive private insurers out of business. If this is true, then Ahmadinejad won fair and square.

Iranians are no strangers to ruling elites enforcing far-right conservative values on an unwilling people. The rigged re-election of Ahmadinejad was the most recent outrage, causing enraged Iranians to protest en masse. (More power to them.) If the Republican noise machine defeats a public health care option, Americans should take to the streets as well. Two polls released in the last few days show that Americans overwhelmingly support a public health care option as part of comprehensive health care reform. The CBS/New York Times poll released Sunday indicates 85% of Americans agree fundamental reform is needed; 72% want a public health care option. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll a few days earlier showed 75% in favor of a public option.

Why, then, have the Republicans all gotten on the same page and laid down a line in the sand against a public option, when this is clearly the opposite of what the people want? Because they don't care what the people want; they care only about what Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, and insurance lobbyists think. It's bad enough Republicans are out of touch, but what's worse is that none of their puppet masters even has a vote. Cheney is a deranged man who seems unable to process his disgraced retirement; Limbaugh is a vaudeville act of self-parody to all but a small, but vocal minority who has drank his Koolaid; insurance company lobbyists are the worst of the vermin – their moneyed influence outweighs that of the apparently plebeian insects whom Congress is elected to serve.

Ahmadinejad and his so-called Supreme Leader are so arrogant that they actually believe they can conduct an indefinite simulation of democracy and get away with it. They realized too late the power of social networking sites, that empower citizens in ways the Iranian government cannot stop. Still, as students of Goebbels and other timeless propaganda-masters, the Iranian leadership continues to peddle the lie that the election was fair -- in the assumption that people will simply believe it if it's repeated enough. In the U.S., Republicans yolked by the far right wing continue to repeat the lie that a public option will destroy our health care system. It doesn't matter that it's not true, it just matters whether the lie works and the status quo gets preserved. What will the Republicans say and do in the face of overwhelming public support for the public option? President Obama warned the Iranian leadership that the world is watching. The world is watching America too. Will we finally provide health care to all our people, or continue to lecture the world about human rights while our own citizens suffer? These citizens are also watching; they are no more passive sheep than the Iranian people.

To expose the anti-reform propaganda of radical conservatism, the American people have the same 21st century arsenal of democracy available to them as the Iranians. We can blog, Tweet, Digg, create and join Facebook causes, send text messages, and forward e-mails. Who are we going to let win this health care fight? Forty old white Senators and a fat, hypocritical shock jock? Or the 50 million people who lack insurance? Ask anyone who's gotten sick and couldn't pay their medical bills – would you rather try it Obama's way, or the way of the moose-hunting publicity whore who's more interested in brawling with talk show hosts than mastering policy? Every single person reading this article knows someone who has a horror story about health care, or has lived a horror story in the first person. Have you made your opinion known to your friends, your family, your loved ones, your elected representatives? The same Twitter that's available to Senator Chuck Grassley is available to you. Whether you agree with me or not about a public, government-run health care option, make sure you speak your mind instead of waiting for Congress to do it for you.

It's obvious to the world that a bunch of fringe religious nutcases sanctioned the theft of the Iranian election, despite the clear will of the Iranian people that they wanted a change from the warmongering, anti-Semitic Ahmadinejad and his disastrous economic policies. Here at home, the unholy alliance of fringe right-wingers and profit-greedy opportunists is trying to subvert the overwhelming will of the common people. The people of both countries should fiercely resist what is being forced upon them by a too-powerful majority more interested in keeping power than helping its citizens. In warning the Iranian leadership to respect its people, Obama noted that Dr. Martin Luther King said the arc of history bends towards justice. The American people demand health care reform, and a public choice to keep insurance companies honest. Obstructionist Republicans who are too cowardly to tell Rush Limbaugh to go to Jahannum should keep Dr. King's words in mind.