Recovered from FSRN’s earlier site via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Originally published August 14, 2009.
The conversation around health care has heated up in recent weeks, especially at town hall meetings. Lawmakers have faced heckling, booing and constituents fighting with each other. Today, President Obama held the second of his forums. He spoke from an airplane hangar in Belgrade, Montana.
(Audio of Obama speaking at Town Hall meeting.)
Obama's town hall meeting earlier this week in Portsmouth, N.H drew attention due to a protester wearing a gun. He was also carrying a sign that included part of the Thomas Jefferson quote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Some of the rhetoric being used by conservative radio hosts includes references to nazism - which is being repeated in blogs and on-line forums and by people at town halls. And, as FSRN’s Leigh Ann Caldwell reports, the current discourse echoes that of the past.
(Special thanks to the Pacifica Radio Archives and the Library of Congress for providing archival tape for this story)
See also the print version of this story.
Online extra: A pictorial history of the healthcare debate through the century.
