Day: August 18, 2009

Listen to Reagan Shilling for the AMA in 1961, Attacking Medicare As ‘Socialized Medicine’

Jon Ponder

Here’s more evidence that Republicans have always hated Medicare. Ronald Reagan recorded this nasty propaganda screed in 1961 when he was an out-of-work B-actor working as a shill for the American Medical Association. The AMA opposed a bill in Congress (and that had the support of Pres. John Kennedy) that would have provided medical care for seniors — later known as Medicare — because they viewed it as a step toward “universal coverage,” which they saw as a threat to their fee structures.

“One of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”
– Reagan in 1961

The AMA’s distaff organization became so concerned that they put together the propganda exercise with Reagan:

Enter the Woman’s [sic] Auxiliary of the AMA an organization composed primarily of the wives of member physicians. In an essay titled “Operation CoffeeCup: Ronald Reagan’s Effort to Prevent the Enactment of Medicare,” Larry DeWitt, a public historian for the Social Security Administration, describes how the Woman’s Auxiliary was asked to launch a special high-priority initiative under the title of WHAM, Women Help American Medicine in 1961.

“The avowed aim of WHAM was bluntly stated,” DeWitt reports: “This campaign is aimed at the defeat of the King-Anderson [Medicare] bill of the 87th Congress, a bill which would provide a system of socialized medicine for our senior citizens and seriously curtail the quality of medical care in the United States.”

It’s interesting to note that, in addition to fearmongering, Republicans were astroturfing even then:

… Operation CoffeeCup arranged a series of coffee-klatches hosted by the members of the Woman’s Auxiliary. “The Auxiliary members were instructed to downplay the purpose of the get-togethers,” DeWitt explains, “depicting them as sort of spontaneous neighborhood events: “Drop a note — just say ‘Come for coffee at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. I want to play the Ronald Reagan record for you.'”

The last line of Reagan’s diatribe is the money shot: “One of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”

He couldn’t have been more incorrect about Medicare, of course. It’s one of the most popular government programs in operation today.

Transcript:

[…]

Poll: Fox News Seen As Least Trustworthy, Viewership Mostly Old Southern Republicans

Jon Ponder

Fox News is indisputably the most popular cable news channel. And yet in 13 years, Fox has never broken a story. That’s okay, because it is not in the news business. It is in the news-shaping business. Its programming is an admixture of right-wing propaganda and fear-porn for feeble-minded paranoiacs, served up by spokesmodels who have no clue what they are reading.

On a related note, Wal-Mart has joined 19 other big advertising in boycotting Fox News’ Glenn Beck in response to Beck calling Obama a “racist” who hates the white culture.

And, yes, it sells like hotcakes.

A new poll from DailyKos/Research 2000 finds that while almost all normal Americans see through this ruse, Fox depends almost exclusively on middle-aged and older Southern Republicans for its success.

Here’s Kos’ analysis:

Republicans watch Fox News and nothing else, Democrats split between MSNBC and CNN, and Independents watch nothing. MSNBC, in particular, depends on Democrats for the vast majority of its audience. One would think they’d realize this and get rid of Joe Scarborough to boost its morning ratings.

The South, unlike the rest of the country, appears to have their TV dials stuck on “FOX NEWS”. Except for the youth, that is. 82 percent of 18-29-year-old respondents never watched FNC.

When asked to rate the trustworthiness of the channels, Fox was called trustworthy by just 35 percent and untrustworthy by 41 percent. Among Southerners, 46 percent found Fox to be reliable, while only 25 percent did not. In the Northeast, 27 percent found Fox to be credible, while 55 percent did not. In the Midwest, the finding was 33 percent reliable, 46 percent unreliable; and in the West it was 33 percent vs 43 percent.

As Kos put it, “Republicans (and the South) obviously think [Fox is] the word of god, while Democrats think it’s shit.” (As if more evidence of the effectiveness of Fox’ brainwashing were needed, only 6 percent of Republicans found MSNBC to be credible.)

[…]