It is quite apparent that President Obama and his staff really haven’t read HR 3200 or any other variation of the proposed “health care reform” that he insists is so desperately needed by the upwards of 80% of Americans who are actually quite satisfied with their current health insurance. As regular Americans read the bill(s) and begin to understand what the various, lengthy sections really mean in terms of dollars, cents, and loss of freedoms they are becoming angry.
They are speaking out.
They are asking questions.
But their unrepresenting representatives aren’t listening. And they aren’t answering the questions.
So the anger of the American people grows. It acts as the spur to take a lunch hour, or an afternoon off of work, to go out and do something most of us have never done before.
Protest.
Join up with others of like-mind (in some cases up to 10,000 of them) and march to make a clear and visible statement to the unrepresenting representaties who aren’t listening or are doing their damndest to avoid the questions.
The White House, at last realizing that while you can fool some of the people all of the time, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, doesn’t know what to do with real, tangible, and logically-presented opposition. Those tens of thousands of regular, hard-working Americans now find themselves on the receiving end of left-wing nut, radicalist tactics of cruel labeling and derision.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:
“I think there is a lot of manufactured anger going on.”
The Democratic National Committee has now set out to round up its members through word-of-mouth and email:
There’s been a lot of media coverage about organized mobs intimidating lawmakers, disrupting town halls, and silencing real discussion about the need for real health insurance reform.
The truth is, it’s a sham. These “grassroots protests” are being organized and largely paid for by Washington special interests and insurance companies who are desperate to block reform. They’re trying to use lies and fear to break the President and his agenda for change.
Health insurance reform is about our lives, our jobs, and our families — we can’t let distortions and intimidation get in the way. We need to expose these outrageous tactics, and we’re counting on you to help. Can you read these “5 facts about the anti-reform mobs,” then pass them along to your friends and family?
5 facts about the anti-reform mobs
1. These disruptions are being funded and organized by out-of-district special-interest groups and insurance companies who fear that health insurance reform could help Americans, but hurt their bottom line. A group run by the same folks who made the “Swiftboat” ads against John Kerry is compiling a list of congressional events in August to disrupt. An insurance company coalition has stationed employees in 30 states to track where local lawmakers hold town-hall meetings.
2. People are scared because they are being fed frightening lies. These crowds are being riled up by anti-reform lies being spread by industry front groups that invent smears to tarnish the President’s plan and scare voters. But as the President has repeatedly said, health insurance reform will create more health care choices for the American people, not reduce them. If you like your insurance or your doctor, you can keep them, and there is no “government takeover” in any part of any plan supported by the President or Congress.
3. Their actions are getting more extreme. Texas protesters brought signs displaying a tombstone for Rep. Lloyd Doggett and using the “SS” symbol to compare President Obama’s policies to Nazism. Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil was hanged in effigy outside his district office. Rep. Tim Bishop of New York had to be escorted to his car by police after an angry few disrupted his town hall meeting — and more examples like this come in every day. And they have gone beyond just trying to derail the President’s health insurance reform plans, they are trying to “break” the President himself and ruin his Presidency.
4. Their goal is to disrupt and shut down legitimate conversation. Protesters have routinely shouted down representatives trying to engage in constructive dialogue with voters, and done everything they can to intimidate and silence regular people who just want more information. One attack group has even published a manual instructing protesters to “stand up and shout” and try to “rattle” lawmakers to prevent them from talking peacefully with their constituents.
5. Republican leadership is irresponsibly cheering on the thuggish crowds. Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a statement applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to “a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress.”
It’s time to expose this charade, before it gets more dangerous. Please send these facts to everyone you know. You can also post them on your website, blog, or Facebook page.
Now, more than ever, we need to stand strong together and defend the truth.
Thanks,
Jen
Jen O’Malley Dillon
Executive Director
Democratic National Committee
President Obama put his John Hancock on a message sent out by his very own community organizers:
“This is the moment our movement was built for. There are those who profit from the status quo, or see this debate as a political game, and they will stop at nothing to block reform. They are filling the airwaves and the Internet with outrageous falsehoods to scare people into opposing change. And some people, not surprisingly, are getting pretty nervous. So we’ve got to get out there, fight lies with truth, and set the record straight.”
And instead of addressing the facts of the matter, instead of discussing the facts set down in black & white in the proposed legislation, the White House has put a snitch program in place. This means that if your friend emails you with their opinion about health care reform and you don’t like their argument or you read a blog and don’t like what it says, you can run squealing to Pater Obama.
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
“Flag” anyone who sees what Congress is proposing as being wrong for the country? Just what will Obama and the administration do with the list of thousands upon thousands of names of Americans who disagree with their agenda for “change”? What do they intend to do to all of those people? How many names of those in Washington will go onto this list because their own words – as documented in writing and in numerous videos – are now proven by the legislation on the table to be both “fishy” and “disinformation”?
This is beyond sandbox squabbling. It smacks of tactics used in Nazi Germany and the tactics recently used in Iran after their so-called presidential election. The White House thinks that by putting the fear of being “outed” to the government into the general populace, they’ll shut down the opposition to their plans.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
Because by using such nefarious tactics to attempt to silence the voice of American people, silence the voice of the people who have given them the very job they hold, the American people rightfully see it as proof that the only “reform” in the Obama administration’s plans for “health care reform” is to eliminate their freedom. Congress is putting it down word by word, in black and white.
And it is YOUR right, it is MY right, to tell them we want no part of it.
We surround them. We will not be silenced. And as it finally dawns on them, they are now – at long last – afraid.
It’s a beautiful thing.