Ellington

Earlier this week, Gov. Haley Barbour announced that he would sue the federal government over the new health-care law the U.S. Congress passed March 21. In his usual windy style of political rhetoric, his press release was full of statements guaranteed to scare the bejeezus out of the uninformed while adding nothing substantive to the national conversation.

It's an effective, if less than honest methodology perfected by politicians since the days of the Southern Strategy: If you can scare people, they're easier to control. In one sentence, Barbour managed to put a scare into just about everyone in Mississippi, if not America: The bill "infects the economy with harmful tax increases, strips benefits from senior citizens and robs each citizen of their basic freedom to choose their own healthcare," he said in his statement.

The problem is, of course, that it's the same misinformation Barbour has been putting out since the health-care debate began in Congress after President Barack Obama's inauguration. It is the kind of bluster that has caused political pundits to dub the Republican Party "The Party of No."

No one seems to have any qualms in saying that the current health insurance system in the United States is broken: Nearly 50 million Americans do not have health insurance; insurance companies regularly drop customers for getting sick; or refuse to insure people who have been sick in the past. Health-care costs are spiraling out of control, helped along by insurers who continue to raise rates to unaffordable levels despite record profits. The largest category of individuals filing for bankruptcy relief is made up of those who can't afford to pay their medical bills. And state budgets, including that of Mississippi, buckle under the weighty consequences of decades spent subsidizing industry instead of taking on the care of the country's citizens.

"Let's Go Walking, Mississippi" barely scratches the surface of the health issues in Mississippi and nationally. By pushing the meme of "personal responsibility" to the extreme, the public is loath to venture into the state of America's corporate food-production chain, which has reduced our food supply's quality by introducing hormones, fillers and genetically altered crops and food animals, while increasing the quantities of cheap, nutritionally void foods available to the public at every fast-food joint from coast-to-coast.

The local movement is one way to "vote with your wallet." Insist on knowing who is responsible for growing your food and what methods producers use to get that food to your table. The other part of the equation is to take the time to understand what legislators are putting into the bills that affect your life. Vote again by telling them bluster and fear mongering won't get it done. Seek the truth through unbiased sources; read the stories; get informed.