With the exception of SEIU and ACORN members, the American people are angry. And they are letting their unrepresenting representatives know this in rare, loud form.
Obama and the Democratic National Committee have embraced a novel approach: attack the voters. These voters are, a new DNC ad tells us repeatedly, a “mob,” an “angry mob,” engaging in “mob activity.” Much of the anger, insists the president’ s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, is “manufactured.” There are hints of a conspiracy. And President Obama, in remarks yesterday, gripes and complains about “griping and complaining” by the American public. (This from a man who, during the campaign, in counseling his supporters on what to do with his opponents, asked them to “get in their face” and celebrated properly channeled “anger” on the part of the American people.)
With public anger toward ObamaCare rising, the president and his allies have decided to pour kerosene on the embers and flames (and fearful Democrats have taken to canceling town-hall meetings). It is an old and sad story we are seeing play out: rather than facing the rancor at town-hall meetings as a sign of growing frustration and unrest, the president and his team are outright denying it. They are reacting defensively, bitterly, and aggressively. And Barack Obama — the man of unsurpassed equanimity and a calm temperament, who praises Lincoln because he always understood the views of those with whom he disagreed, the man who would usher in a “new era” of politics and civility, of enlightened public discourse and comity among previously warring factions — is allowing his representatives to mock and demonize his critics.
And so it is. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said, “They have no interest in letting the negotiators, even though few in number, negotiate. It’s really simple: they’re taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor-mongerers … and insurance rackets.” The U.S. Community Organizer In Chief, through his Democrat handmaidens, has promised the party and allies would “punch back twice as hard” if they are openly criticized. Nancy Pelosi tells tall tales of you and I, plain old regular Americans, walking around waving swastikas.
On Thursday, the AFL-CIO announced plans to mobilize labor activists to attend town hall meetings in 50 congressional districts during the August recess. And the Center for American Progress, among other organizations, is drumming up Obamabots to “make sure that health care town halls aren’t hijacked!”
Some Congress critters are taking all this to heart and last night’s town hall meeting in South St. Louis, hosted by Democrat Representative Russ Carnahan, actually locked the doors against regular citizens who lined up to attend. SEIU members were snuck in through the back door (a door ironically marked “handicapped”) and, in stereotypical union fashion, some of them became violent with the regular citizens in attendance, resulting in six arrests (including people taking pictures).
In Tampa, Florida, Democratic State Representative Betty Reed and U.S. Representative Kathy Castor set up a session on health care and insurance reform but were met by larger-than-expected crowds who didn’t want to hear just talking points. Meeting organizers scuffled with regular citizens and it wasn’t long before Castor was escorted out of the town hall by police after Reed encouraged her to leave. (Note to self: one of the “most popular” articles next to this one is headlined “Woman accused of having sex with dogs “. Cancel trip to Florida.)
It’s extremely encouraging to see the sleeping dragon, America’s silent majority, has begun to awaken. But I take exception to those who would cross the line into outright rudeness and become physical with those who hold differing views, no matter how wrong they are. That only gives validity to the Democrats’ agenda and, considering the mindset of Obama and those he has placed into positions of power in the federal government, give him flimsy reason to do something as stupid as attempt to declare marshall law.
We don’t need violence or – god forbid – bloodshed to wrest this country back from the leeches who are sucking the life out of her. Cool heads must prevail. The polls show confidence in the administration continues to drop like a rock. The Rasmussen Report’s daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday, August 6, 2009 shows:
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- 32% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President
38% Strongly Disapprove - 71% believe the President’s policies have driven up the federal deficit
54% say that middle class tax cuts are more important than new spending on health care
Only 33% now believe the country is heading in the right direction - Overall, 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance
51% disapprove
- 32% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President
Those in government know that for every phone call or letter they receive, there are at least 10 people who think the same way but just aren’t taking the time to say so, so we must continue to call and write Congress. Continue to show up at townhall meetings and Tea Party protests because even if your Congress critter turns tail and locks you out of the dialogue, and even if the mainstream Obama-lapdog media won’t report on it, your presence counts. But whatever you do, do so with polite resolve. If confronted with bots and stupidity, meet them with stony silence. Though the normal reaction is to argue, remember this – when you wrestle with a pig you both get dirty but only the pig enjoys it. While the last thing they want is to be ignored (and in truth this is the best way to anger them), if you can’t manage to turn your back, laugh at them instead and let their reactions cause them to look the fool. As more and more regular Americans take up the fight for freedom, more and more cameras will be rolling and, frankly, it’s the perfect opportunity to continue to flush out those with nefarious hidden agendas because when they go on tape saying or doing stupid things, it’s there forever and try as they may, they cannot deny it.
Never forget that although we surround them, this fight for freedom is a fight against cowards. And cowards don’t play fair. They won’t discuss facts but instead call names and try to force matters into a place of emotions. The minute you go there with them, they’ve won.
And this is one fight we, the people, cannot afford to lose.
Mike in PA says
What is rearch? I thought that liberals were intellectuals?
Nameless Cynic says
Well, thanks for backing up – the nesting is good for some things, but that was getting ridiculous.
First of all, you didn’t care about tactics or reason: in the end, you just wanted to make unjustified, unhistorical comparisons between Barack Obama and fascism. Let’s be honest here. All this talk about socialism, communism and fascism from the Right is just an attempt to use loaded, negative words; to put up a smokescreen so that the issues aren’t being argued, and your opponent goes on the defensive.
That (do you mind if I use your own argument here?) is the tactic of a coward.
“They won’t discuss facts but instead call names and try to force matters into a place of emotions. The minute you go there with them, they’ve won.” Where have we heard that before?
Now, as for your last sentence (and I dare you to graph it for me, by the way – your english teacher would not be proud of that) refers to the random spewings of some conservatives who want to claim that ACORN is going to rallies to break it up. Couple of points:
– Yes, Obama helped set up ACORN. He isn’t in charge of them, and they aren’t his army.
– Yes, they have received federal funding. For the work they do for the community. A lot of groups receive federal funds – that doesn’t make them part of the government. (“Healthcare for te Homeless” gets federal funds – are they patching up the soldiers in Obama’s Army?)
– ACORN is not the end-all and be-all of enemy groups. They aren’t the center of all bad things that the unhinged right wants to demonize them for. And most importantly,
– ACORN isn’t showing up at rallies to break up the protestors. Please, show me something besides ranting bloggers with spittle covering their keyboards who say they are.
A Responsible American says
If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it ain’t a cow. Like most liberals, you present no facts to back up your accusations that the people who are attending townhalls are stupid, nor for your support for the false accusations that they’re somehow doing the bidding of some Big Bad Business Entity. When you resort to criticizing sentence structure, that’s when you lose me.
It’s quite obvious you don’t want to know what’s happening, or you fully support the government controlling every aspect of your life. Either way, we don’t pay for server space so liberals have yet another forum to bash conservatives, so I’ll leave you to find other conservatives to harrass.
Have a great day.
Nameless Cynic says
It’s difficult to argue this post. Primarily because it’s so full of ridiculous claims that the response would be three or four times the length of the post. So I’ll just concentrate on a few of them.
First, you keep claiming, as does your quote from Paul Wehner, that this “movement” is not manufactured, that it’s a true grassroots effort. Unfortunately, the evidence is against you.
The whole thing is being organized by FreedomWorks (Dick Armey’s group) and “Americans for Prosperity” (which as been industry-funded from the beginning, and is currently chaired by billionaire David Koch); both groups also orchestrated the “tea parties” earlier this year. If you don’t know that you’re being manipulated by the healthcare industry, maybe you should do your rearch.
Oh, and let’s not forget “Conservatives for Patients Rights,” the ironically-named group organized by Richard Scott to fight against universal health care. Funny thing about that. The group claiming that government-run healthcare will ruin America is being run by the former frontman for HCA, which was fined $1.7 billion dollars for defrauding Medicare – which makes them an enduring symbol of everything that’s wrong with American healthcare.
Oh, incidentally, you know that “swastika” quote from Pelosi that the right wing is whining endlessly about? Yeah, funny thing. One of the ones that have been seen was at one of her rallies.
But it’s kind of sad that you don’t even know when you’re being manipulated.
A Responsible American says
Well, it’s not difficult to argue with this comment. It’s being given to those who have taken it upon themselves to open their eyes, look around, actually read the bills being proposed and voted upon, and have come to the logical conclusion that the Emperor is buck-naked.
And it ain’t a pretty sight.
Now the very people who villified George Bush are seeing their own tactics coming back around to haunt them and claiming foul.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.
But have no fear. We surround you. And we’ll continue to fight for your right to make a fool of yourself in public.
Nameless Cynic says
Well, since few of the people being manic at town halls have even shown the ability to read in the first place, the mental image of them reading the bills is pretty hard to swallow. (Can you swallow a mental image? Ah, never mind…)
They aren’t there to make their voices heard; they’re there to make sure that nobody’s voice is heard. They have no real message: they tend to just scream random phrases. And they don’t end up looking smart.
At a town hall held by .Gene Green (D-TX), one of them turned to the crowd and asked if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Nearly all of them did. Then Rep. Green asked how many of the people there were on Medicare, and almost half of them raised their hands.
Think about that for a minute. These aren’t the best and the brightest. They’re just whoever is willing to be manipulated.
Let’s apply a little logic here. Are these people really starting fist fights and screaming matches because they really don’t want to be covered for health care in case they lose their jobs or if their insurance companies turn them down?
If they are, how stupid is that?
And if they aren’t, then why are they throwing fists?
And do they realize that the cost of this program will NOT come from their taxes, but from the 1% top earners in the country? Therefore, they’re fighting on behalf of the wealthy who’ve fired or laid off their neighbors and families?
And why do they hate democracy, anyway? When people go to town hall meetings to hear directly from their congresscritters and get their voice heard, that’s democracy in action. To prevent that from happening is the opposite of democracy. And when this same crowd of inbreeders starts sending death threats to Democrats in congress, that’s even worse.
And then for you to say “seeing their own tactics coming back around” shows that you don’t know your history very well. This is the kind of garbage that the GOP learned from Karl Rove: they were even using it during the election recount disputes in Florida during the 2000 election (you know, the one GW Bush lost)
A Responsible American says
The average American is starting to see clearly that their Congress critters aren’t listening to them about ANYTHING. Even intelligent and pointed questions are answered with spin, and it is perfectly normal and proper for people in a free country to voice their disapproval at such tactics. For most of them, it is the first time they’ve experienced the b.s. face-to-face and they are, frankly, appalled. Not that it excuses rudeness, but the SEIU and ACORN members ordered to attend and disrupt are certainly not blameless.
As far as manipulation, just who do you think is paying for those ACORN members to show up and “protest”? It’s your tax dollars at work, courtesy of stimulus funds. So the question then becomes: is it fair for the government to send people to protest against citizen protestors?
The majority of Americans who have health insurance want to keep it. They disapprove of Congress’ plan to take it away from them, and anyone who has read the bill(s) sees “no choice” spelled out clearly. They disagree with the government dictating their medical care, though most think some sort of insurance reform and even tort reform are in order. And they disagree that the 1% of Americans who pay MORE in taxes than all of the other 95% of taxpayers combined – that 1% being an amount that has doubled since WWII – should continue to foot the bill and to pay for things like federally funded abortions and health care for illegal immigrants (criminals) because when those people find themselves over-taxed, there will be no more businesses and therefore no more jobs at all.
As for the history of protest, don’t blame Karl Rove. Look back to the tactics used in Germany and Italy before WWII, and more recently the tactics penned by Saul Alinsky and taught and used in his continuing campaign by Barack Obama.
Nameless Cynic says
Oh, yeah. Absolutely let’s look at the history of those tactics. And, as you say, let’s “look back to the tactics used in Germany and Italy before WWII.”
Go pick up a copy of Robert O. Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism, for example.
Mussolini used his Blackshirts against groups for ethnic reasons (the Slavs of Fiume and Trieste) and to bust unions in the Po Valley, where the landowners were being forced to pay reasonable wages to people they could formerly work to death on starvation wages. Oh, and when groups of people they didn’t like got together (like, say, in the Bologna city hall on November 21, 1920), they’d go in there and roust them. On the rare occasions when they were in front of the police or the military, they’d just disrupt things (you know, like chanting slogans: “Just say no!” or “He’s lying!”). When they weren’t being watched, they’d get more violent (you know, like death threats to Democratic congressmen, or the 400% increase in death threats on the lawfully elected President of the United States).
Hitler used similar tactics with his Brownshirts. They were heavily financed by big business, and intent on ensuring that the “little man” (the poor and the minorities) couldn’t get, or hold onto, power.
You should probably read your history before you try to draw comparisons like that.
A Responsible American says
I spoke of tactics, you answered with the reasons they were used. Apples and oranges. Now is merely the mirror image (i.e. reversed) of then. What is not different is that they are being used for the same reason. To gain power and control over the populace.
And so, tellingly, you did not answer the most important question, and that is: what gives the United States federal government the right to use our tax dollars to fund protestors sent to counter the free speech of its citizens?
Nameless Cynic says
(Man, did I screw up the formatting in that answer…)