{"id":3044,"date":"2010-10-06T03:46:14","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T10:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=3044"},"modified":"2010-10-06T03:46:14","modified_gmt":"2010-10-06T10:46:14","slug":"dont-blame-the-firefighters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/10\/06\/dont-blame-the-firefighters\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Blame The Firefighters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"REGIONS When I was a young lifeguard, I saw a man struggling beyond the breakers and went into action.  I ran through the surf and swam to him.  He lunged at me, a common mistake by drowning victims.  I blocked him with a straight arm in the center of his chess, hooked his elbow with my free hand, and turned him, so I could put him in a cross-chest carry.  At that point, I asked if he had paid his annual lifeguard fee.  He said he had forgotten, but offered to pay whatever it took.  It told him that it was too late and that it was his fault, released him and watched him slip below the waves.  Huh?  Does that sound absurd?  It better, because only in a world gone mad would that have happened.  What really happened is that, shortly after I gained control of him, our boat arrived, and we pulled him into the boat.  Sadly, we now live in a world gone mad in places where Republicans are in charge, and the wrong-wing media is defending a comparable scenario.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"glenn-beck-tin-foil-hat\" As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, last week South Fulton Fire Department firefighters from Obion, Tennessee, stood by and watched as the Cranick family\u2019s home burned down \u2014 which also led to the death<\/a> of the family\u2019s three dogs and a cat \u2014 because their fire-fighting services were available by subscription only<\/strong>, and the family had not paid the $75 fee. Immediately, right-wing writers at the conservative movement\u2019s bulkhead magazine, The National Review, defended the county and argued that firefighting should not be a public service available to all, regardless of ability to pay<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Now, yet another major conservative has joined the defense. On his radio show this afternoon, leading right-wing talker Glenn Beck and his producer Pat Gray openly mocked the Cranick family<\/strong>. After playing a news clip explaining the situation, Gray adopted a southern drawl and began to mock Gene Cranick\u2019s explanation of how the county\u2019s firefighters refused to help his family. <\/p>\n

Beck then went on to complain that \u201cthose who are just on raw feeling are not going to understand\u201d that the county\u2019s actions in refusing to assist the Cranicks were justified. He explained that America will be having the \u201cargument\u201d about the case of the Cranicks and that it will go \u201cnowhere if you go onto \u2018compassion, compassion, compassion, compassion\u2019 or well, \u2018they should\u2019ve put it out, what is the fire department for?\u2019\u201d Beck then went on to say that the Cranicks would be \u201cspongeing off their neighbors\u201d if the fire department had helped them put out their fire<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

On and off, I was a volunteer firefighter from the ages 17 through 50.  I can promise you that those firefighters wanted to put out that fire.  I would not want to have been in their station when they returned, because tempers gad to be flaring big time.  So don\u2019t blame the firefighters.  Blame the heartless Republican playing golf half a mile away that issued the order.  Blame the Republican party that instituted this plan over the objection of the fire department, so they could say they didn\u2019t raise taxes.  This insanity is the future of America if Republicans take charge, as Keith Olbermann and Robert Reich discuss.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Disgusting, isn\u2019t it?  The man I pulled from the sea is glad we have single-payer lifeguard service, as we should.  Most of America has single-payer firefighter service, as we should.  And perhaps the reason the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda is so dead set in supporting this travesty is they fear that Americans will get it that we are interconnected, and America needs single payer services, like lifeguards, police, firefighters, and health care<\/strong>!  Republicans oppose this, because every penny government returns to taxpayers in services is a penny Republicans can\u2019t give to millionaires<\/strong>.<\/font><\/p>\n

VOTE!<\/font><\/strong><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a young lifeguard, I saw a man struggling beyond the breakers and went into action.  I ran through the surf and swam to him.  He lunged at me, a common mistake by drowning victims.  I blocked him with a straight arm in the center of his chess, hooked his elbow with my […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}