Wednesday, July 16, 2014

An Enemy of The People

UNITY

I would be easy to say that Phil Gingrey's plague-mongering is a new low in depravity for the Party of Jefferson Davis, but really, the hash marks were worn off those calipers years ago. From MSNBC:
...
Leading the charge is Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), who recently told the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention there have been “reports of illegal immigrants carrying deadly diseases,” including the Ebola virus. The right-wing congressman also complained that many of the children “lack basic vaccinations.”

Let’s pause to note a few pertinent details that Gingrey, himself a physician by trade, might have missed.

For example, the children are fleeing Central American countries where Ebola doesn’t exist. Maybe Gingrey should have looked this one up before warning the CDC.

What’s more, according to the World Bank, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico each have a higher vaccination rate than the United States, making Gingrey’s CDC letter, among other things, ironic.
“There is a long, sad, and shameful tradition in the United States in using fear of disease, contagion and contamination to stigmatize immigrants and foreigners,” Arthur Caplan, director of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University’s Langone Medical Center told NBC. “Sadly, this letter which rests firmly on innuendo and fear-mongering proudly continues this unethical tradition.”
So while Brother Charles Pierce marks this development as "nearly beyond belief" and a "comical disgrace" --
...This is why what Gingrey said was so dangerous, not to mention indecent. Would anyone like to guess the reaction of the people to whom Gingrey is pitching this nonsense if it ever took hold in what passes for their minds? (Here's NewsBusters, the wingnut-welfare rest home for aging tropes, passing along Gingrey's bullshit, ably assisted by Larry Klayman's terrarium for paranoids, Judicial Watch.) Hell, these are people who were ready to rumble merely at the sight of a schoolbus carrying immigrant children.

Would anyone like to guess at the reaction of the anti-science faction of Wingnuttia if this nonsense ever took hold and doctors tried to tell people what hooey it actually was? Remember the scene in Jaws when the mayor says, "You say barracuda, and people say, 'What?' You say 'shark,' and we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth Of July." That's what we have here. You say "dengue fever," and people say, "What?" You say, "Ebola," and the hysteria goes red-zone. Which far too many of our politicians find advantageous.

The idea that an elected official even would consider ginning up that kind of thing by appealing to the nativist ignorance of his audience is nearly beyond belief. That said elected official is a physician is an almost comical disgrace. That anyone anywhere would do it while people are dying unremarked in an authentically terrifying medical catastrophe, simply because his primary audience is made up of people who simply hate the undifferentiated brown people with whom they have to share the planet, makes Phil Gingrey an object of justified contempt.
...
-- I would disagree.

Once our Beltway media and the leaders of the Democratic Party decided to sacrifice accountability to the Gods of Bipartisanship -- once the Party of Bigots and Lunatics were be allowed to skip out on paying any long-term price whatsoever for their treasons and disasters by scampering through the Bush Off Machine over and over again -- the  rise of political foot fungus like Gingrey to positions of prominence became inevitable.

Hell, If he could get away with it without being sued by HBO and AMC, I have no doubt that Gingrey would swear on the Republican Bible that these kids are vampires and zombies.

Because like every other critical issues bearing down on us today, this was never about the facts.

And as long as the GOP is permitted to exist unashamed and unrepentant, it never will be.




7 comments:

Monster from the Id said...

If the media operatives told the truth about the Reptilians, they would lose their jobs, because the owners of the media belong to the Malefactors Of Great Wealth, the class which benefits most from the Reptilian lunacy--although some of the MOGW have gone over to the Dinocrats because the Reptilian orc hordes are starting to scare even the MOGW,or at least the smarter members, who remember that their counterparts in Germany, circa 1930, thought they could control Charlie Chaplin's evil twin and his orc hordes.

The Reptilians themselves benefit from their lunacy, by attracting the votes of all the Crazy Uncles Liberty (and Crazy Aunts Libertina).

The Dinocrats also benefit from the Reptilian lunacy, since they can sell out their base repeatedly to the Malefactors Of Great Wealth who own both parties, but still count on the votes of their base, because the Dinocratic voters are so terrified of the Reptilian orc hordes gaining any more power.

It's a sweet racket for both parties.

As for Dr. Gingrey--as a Georgia doctor, he's no Leonard McCoy.

Dan said...

I'm going to place a good bit of blame on the State of Georgia Medical Board.Why in the Mickey mouse hell does Gin grey or Broun STILL have a license?
If a politician wants to talk racist shit that's one thing but to do so while pretending to uphold actual ethical is another animal indeed
Neither one of those bastards ought to be allowed to keep their license

milegrinder said...

The Georgia version of the Board of Medical Quality Assurance (yeah, right) appears to require no practitioner to adhere to the principle of PRIMUM NON NOCERE ("first do no harm"). This diseased skin-flag Gingery violates that by drawing oxygen.

dinthebeast said...

Perhaps he was confusing them with Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggets? I mean, that makes as much sense as what he actually said.

-Doug in Oakland

Horace Boothroyd III said...

Well, gosh, it's awfully popular in some circles to blather on about how the Democrats are like 95% as bad as the Republicans so it doesn't matter which of the corporate sell out parties might win - and there could even be advantages to Team Treason in a GOP victory so why not throw an election here and there to scare the liberals.

Oddly enough, people do pay attention and we do notice who is down in the trenches in the fight and who is behind the lines doing the Purity Squeal and when the victory is won there will be a great big NO FUCKING SOUP FOR YOU, ASSHOLES sign hanging at the banquet where we divide up the spoils. And remember, NO WHINING about how UNFAIR it all is after you have done so much to sabotage the effort. Own your fucking decisions, dudebro, and tell the Cheese Eater that no one misses him and his incessant both-sides-do-it gibbering.

Robt said...

When it comes to Gingrey's absurd assertion of the Ebola. In his mind it is true. Even though Ebola is specific to the Continent of Africa.
Gingrey's religious beliefs in his mind is true, although outside his mind it is false.
SCOTUS just told Hobby lobby that it is not for anyone to question the false reality of a faith that just doesn't "Believe" in facts.
The fats are the facts but in Gingry.'s headroom, it is what he imagines it is and it is his belief that tells him so.
As Hobby Lobby can believe that contraception is abortion in the religion in Hobby's headroom.

If the SCOTUS should not and did not question this, what gives anyone else a right to question?
Got it?

Monster from the Id said...

The rank-and-file Dinocratic True Believers still believe there will be a "victory", and a "banquet", and "spoils" shared out evenly among the privates, rather than hogged by the generals and their owners.

Likewise, the rank-and-file Reptilian True Believers believe the "spoils" of their "victory", if that ever happens, will be shared out evenly among the privates, rather than hogged by the generals and their owners.