In a shocking turn of events, Jay Severin said something on the radio last week that made me think, “That can’t be right.”
And again, don’t forget the White House enemies list. For all you liberals who were upset when Richard Nixon had an enemies list in the White House, you still go to cocktail parties in Cambridge and say “Nixon, the pig.” That he actually had an enemy’s list right there in the White House a list of people he didn’t like. An enemies list! And Bush. “Ah, Bush what a pig! Can you believe he laid on a domestic surveillance program?” Of course it was never domestic surveillance. It had to be a terrorist from outside the country calling in or a terrorist inside the country calling out. So for preventing terrorism or trying to, Bush was a big pig, right? But now Barack Obama uses your tax money to establish a web site and asks us to spy on each other turning [in] people who are spreading opposite opinions about Obamacare. And you turn them into the White House. I turned myself in yesterday morning at flag — what’s it, flagwhitehouse.gov? — and you can go to whitehouse.gov and see the invitation to turn people in and I say join me. You are Spartacus. I am Spartacus. If it helps, I am Ludacris. I’ll be anybody, but turn in each other, turn in your mother and father, turn in your kids. Turn in me please, turn yourselves in. You will be proud to be on this list. We are all Spartacus.
So let’s see just WTF Jay is talking about. It took a little research, because of course there is no such thing as http://flagwhitehouse.gov, and when I went to http://whitehouse.gov the other day I saw nothing remotely like a place to “turn in” opponents of the health care bill. What I believe Jay was referring to was this blog post, in which an Obama administration official tries to counter what the administration sees as false information circulating through various electronic media. Here is the “call to arms”:
If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
Maybe I’m a Pollyanna, but I just don’t see that as an invitation to put your friends and neighbors on a White House enemies list. Do you?
And yes, I’m forwarding this blog post to flag@whitehouse.gov.
12 Comments
I heard this, too, and didn’t know at the time where Jay was coming from, but I also heard about the blog you mentioned. After Jay made this startling statement, a woman called in and agreed with him, said she would turn herself into the White House that day, and then yelled, “I AM SPARTICUS!” I have dear friends who happen to be rabidly to the right in politics, and I am keeping away from them during this debacle because I know they would bring up this nonsense about healthcare and possibly tell me that old people will all die of neglect and little Trig will be comdemned to death. Talk about a nation of sheep! Since when do we allow radio and television commentators tell us what to think?
Why can Jay Severin work 5 days a week straight? It seems like he always took a few days off “mini-vacation.”
I am with Linda. Though I am a veteran health care professional and want to be engaged in the “debate”, I can no longer listen. I do not have cable news in my home, and do not listen to talk radio regularly, one cannot get away from such shockingly ignorant comments as Sarah Palin’s which are beamed across the nation. in a heartbeat.. It is despicable that the health care reform issue has been commandeered by talk show hosts who neither know nor care what is really going on in Er’, hospitals, nursing homes i.e. the challanges being met by workers and patient’s a like. The end-of life provision is really a gift to person’s who want to control their own care at end of life. It is being used already by the Living Will empowers people and is a source of comfort, yet right wingers have used it as tool for hate to their own detriment. I never knew that so many US citizens were so blatantly unhappy and brain-washed. I fear for the many who are in the grip of propagandists.
Update: it seems that flag@whitehouse.gov has been killed. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_e_mail
You honestly see no problem with this statement, “If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”
Really, I don’t. How is it different from saying something like “to express your views, e-mail the President or your Congressional representatives?”
People are making it sound like they’re saying “if you think your neighbor is anti-Obama and you want us to keep an eye on them, send us an e-mail.” (And I’m sure that plenty of people have sent anti-neighbor e-mail, unsolicited, to this and previous administrations.)
“How is it different from saying something like “to express your views, e-mail the President or your Congressional representatives?”
It’s different because your example is aboout an individual knowingly expressing their views, not about someone unknowingly having their eamil forwarded to a gov’t database…now do you see the difference?
This to me is a violation of privacy.
But Really, there has never been anything preventing me from forwarding an e-mail from anyone to anyone, including a government address. And in context, it’s pretty clear that what the White House really wanted was the content of the e-mail and perhaps the identity of the original author, not the identities of the individuals who passed the e-mail along.
That’s exactly what I am talking about. I am not talking about the ones forwarding the email. I am talking about the people who have their email unknowingly forwarded to the whitehouse…that is insane! You actually think that it’s OK for you to forward an email to the gov’t for what purpose? Is this the community police that our dear overlord spoke of during the campaign? I have never in my lifetime heard of the gov’t advertising to do something like this. Unacceptable and people are starting to wake up.
The rule of thumb for e-mail has always been “if you don’t want it appearing on the front page of the New York Times, don’t send the e-mail.” E-mail gets unknowingly forwarded all the time and anyone who doesn’t already know this is pathetically ignorant.
If the White House had put out a message saying “if you know people who disagree with our policies, send us their e-mail addresses,” that would have been a bad move. But that’s not what they did. They said — albeit clumsily — “if you see a bunch of nonsense on the Internet, send us a copy.” Anyway, they pulled the plug on the program so it should be moot at this point.
You’re completely missing the point. The only reason why it was yanked was because people caught on to what they were trying to do. The gov’t can’t run the post office or something as simple as “cash for clunker’s”. And yes I do know that emails get forwarded all the time. But most of the time it’s not to a federal gov’t web site. I really don’t see how anyone could even agree with this. And I think that anyone who condones this type of behavior could be classified; in your words if I may, “pathetically ignorant”.
“if you think your neighbor is anti-Obama and you want us to keep an eye on them, send us an e-mail.”
looks like the White House doesn’t actually have to say it now do they? and they do say “send it to”. they are not asking you to send any questions you may have to them…you are forwarding someone else’s emails and all the adresses that go along with it! And why are forwarded emails now getting unsolicited emails from the White House?
if the government wants to tap my phone while i make a call to the middle east (which i do not do) let them-but do not collect my info or decide healthcare for me-thanks.