Keith O: "this last issue ... is I think, where people separate themselves from animals"

[eppur_se_muova]

GROSS: ... At the same time, I was wondering, like, did you really want to use words like ghouls and subhumans to describe the people who were talking about death panels? And did you really want to damn them to hell? Those are all really strong words.

Will you just - I'd be interested in how you decided to go with those words and whether you'd continue using those words on Current TV, words as dehumanizing as that, to describe people opposed to you.

Mr. OLBERMANN: ... I mean, the first half of the whole thing was obviously the subject of health care reform and the incredible burden the current system has put on people who are suffering and trying to get well and worry more about their money than their cancer. Separating it, even from that, this last issue, this end-of-life issue, is I think, where people separate themselves from animals.

And if you are Betsy McCaughey, or if you are Sarah Palin, and you actually take this greatest possible comfort, the opportunity to get a little insurance money back when you consult the doctor, and he spends 45 minutes just talking to the two of you or whoever is involved in the process - you turn that on its head and somehow make that into something to terrorize people - and I use that word decidedly, as well - to terrorize people into believing that some doctor is going to decide that they can't live anymore, when in fact, you are liberating everybody involved in the process.
***
I think that is subhuman. ... I can understand if you don't get it, if you're too foolish to understand what this part of health care reform was intended to be. I can understand that and forgive that, and those are not the subhumans, those are just people who have not informed themselves or who are scared or just listened to political cliches.

But the people pushing this, who receive money from insurance companies to try to terrify people into opposing something that will benefit them particularly in this area, I cannot say: All right, we need to tone down politics in this country and our language. I'm happy to do it in all circumstances except when it's really true. And in my mind, this is really true.

More from the "Fresh Air" interview with Terry Gross first broadcast on 7 Jun.: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=136931640

This is a short but fully-packed interview -- KO does not speak just in complete sentences or even complete paragraphs, but in complete analyses of the issues, and complete truths. There's a lot more in this interview, and the transcripts of soundbites from "Countdown" are included; the "Special Comment" where he talked about "life panels" is excerpted there.

ETA: I felt it was especially important to hear KO out on this, precisely because "subhuman" is such a very charged word, having been used by the Nazis to dehumanize the Jews. Some might argue that another word might serve, and perhaps that debate is still open. But I have to agree with KO's justification for using such a word.

[lob1]

1. K&R.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

2. I enjoyed that interview. n/t

[bluerum]

3. Great interview. Thanks for the link.