Fight in August

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

So what's the best way of dealing with these people ?

Why does everything seem to smack of cudgel-wielding thugs breaking up, say, anti-slavery meetings in the 19th century.

Fight in August

By Eric Etheridge

Greg Sargent asked the question of the moment earlier today on his blog: “Is Obama’s vaunted political operation getting outworked by tea-baggers?”

The evidence that the correct answer is yes has been mounting of late, as Democratic Congressmen have been increasingly heckled and jeered at town hall meetings back home. This last Saturday, anti-health care protesters shouting “just say no” disrupted the Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett’s town hall meeting in Austin. On Sunday, Senator Arlen Specter and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius were booed and harangued about health care reform at a town hall in Philadelphia.

This is not how the Democrats want to spend the August recess. The question is, were they really expecting something different?

Bloggers have been busy reporting on the folks behind the August Town Hall campaign now being mounted by those who oppose health care reform. The effort has roots in the “tea party” protests that sprang up earlier this year, as well as connections to the Swift Boat players.

Last Friday, Lee Fang at Think Progress reported that “much of these protests are coordinated by public relations firms and lobbyists who have a stake in opposing President Obama’s reforms.”

The lobbyist-run groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which orchestrated the anti-Obama tea parties earlier this year, are now pursuing an aggressive strategy to create an image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, details how members should be infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress.

The memo included such instructions as “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

Also, “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”

Yesterday, Brian Beutler at TPMDC reported on another player in the protests, an organization called Conservatives for Patients Rights:

On Friday, July 24, a representative of Conservatives for Patients Rights — the anti-health care reform group run by disgraced hospital executive Rick Scott, in conjunction with the message men behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth — sent an email to a list serve (called the Tea Party Patriots Health Care Reform Committee) containing a spreadsheet that lists over one hundred congressional town halls from late July into September.

The email from CPR to tea baggers suggests that, though conservatives portray the ** disruptions as symptoms of a populist rebellion roiling unprompted through key districts around the country, they have to a great extent been orchestrated by anti-health care reform groups financed by industry.

So far, writes Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic, the response from the White House and Democrats has been to “ridicule the opposition — and portray those who disrupt meetings with loud chants and signs as part of the same ilk of people who showed up at campaign rallies for John McCain and Sarah Palin right after the 2008 Republican National Convention.”

A party strategist e-mailed around a clip from Rep. Lloyd Doggett’s town hall meeting. At one point, a sign featuring Nazi lettering can be seen. Another strategist with ties to the White House made sure to point out that a popular sign at these rallies features Obama, in Shepherd Fairy-esque ink, as the Joker (although it’s not clear how many signs have been seen at actual rallies). A White House official pointed to press secretary Robert Gibbs’s comparison to the 2000 “protest” at Miami-Dade county election headquarters organized and peopled with young conservative lawyers.

“Patronizing opponents is a tried and true tradition in Washington, and Democrats have used the tactic with success,” writes Ambinder, but there’s a bigger issue here.

The more troublesome question for Democratic strategists is why the major Democratic groups, including Organizing for America, the labor unions, Health Care for America Now, seem to be flatfooted and unable to match the much smaller conservative organizing capacity in these critical districts. One answer is that the media pays attention to the loudest voices, which are coming from the right. The other is that organizing around major — even popular — reforms of existing institutions is tough. The Democrats don’t have a single bill right now, and the elite left is worried about what’s not in the cards — a public plan — and is therefore fairly unenthusiastic. If the liberal elite isn’t enthusiastic, the liberal base — less knowledgeable — will be as well.

Where exactly is Organizing for America in all of this? Greg Sargent reminds us that “OFA has been regularly announcing new initiatives throwing its weight into the push for reform. It recently announced events in all 50 states and has regularly been calling for shows of spontaneous pushback against G.O.P. obstructionism.”

In other words, OFA is supposed to be doing exactly what the right is now doing: Staging very visible displays of passionate support for their side’s goal — i.e., health care reform.

I don’t know if OFA is succeeding or not. If so, its successes are decidedly less visible than what we’re seeing from the anti-reform forces, though this could reflect the fact that OFA events don’t emply the raucus agitprop we’re seeing from anti-reform crowds.

But OFA’s activities, and those of the Democratic Party in general, are suddenly are much more important, now that there appears to be a very deliberate right-wing effort under way to create the impression of populist opposition to reform. It’s yet another reminder that health care is the ultimate test of whether Obama’s vaunted campaign operation can drive Obama’s legislative agenda and achieve real results.

For Digby at Hullabaloo, the Town Hall outbursts are entirely “predictable.” Reform opponents “are following the 1994 playbook and they did the same thing then.”

As an example, Digby offers an excerpt from a PBS timeline of the health-care fight 15 years ago:

July 22, 1994 - Trying to win back the kind of political support that brought them to the White House, the administration plans a bus trek across America to generate their own grassroots message to Congress for reform. A kickoff rally in Portland, Oregon, is marred by anti-Clinton protesters. When the first buses reach the highway they find a broken-down bus wreathed in red tape symbolizing government bureaucracy and hitched to a tow truck labeled, “This is Clinton Health Care.” . . .

July 23, 1994 - Following several days of anti-Hillary rhetoric on local talk shows, Hillary Clinton — at a bus rally in Seattle — is confronted by hundreds of angry men shouting that the Clintons are going to destroy their way of life, ban guns, extend abortion rights, protect gays, and socialize medicine. When she finishes speaking and tries to leave the rally, her limousine is surrounded by protesters. Each of the four caravan routes becomes an expedition into enemy territory — with better-armed, better-prepared, better-mobilized anti-Clinton protesters at each stop along the way. Local reform groups and caravan organizers are forced to cancel scheduled stops because of implicit threats of violence.

Back to Digby: “I’m sure the Democrats all remember this and are prepared for it this time. Right?”

Source

[Brian&Naty 0]

So what's the best way of dealing with these people ?

Why does everything seem to smack of cudgel-wielding thugs breaking up, say, anti-slavery meetings in the 19th century.

Fight in August

By Eric Etheridge

Greg Sargent asked the question of the moment earlier today on his blog: “Is Obama’s vaunted political operation getting outworked by tea-baggers?”

The evidence that the correct answer is yes has been mounting of late, as Democratic Congressmen have been increasingly heckled and jeered at town hall meetings back home. This last Saturday, anti-health care protesters shouting “just say no” disrupted the Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett’s town hall meeting in Austin. On Sunday, Senator Arlen Specter and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius were booed and harangued about health care reform at a town hall in Philadelphia.

This is not how the Democrats want to spend the August recess. The question is, were they really expecting something different?

Bloggers have been busy reporting on the folks behind the August Town Hall campaign now being mounted by those who oppose health care reform. The effort has roots in the “tea party” protests that sprang up earlier this year, as well as connections to the Swift Boat players.

Last Friday, Lee Fang at Think Progress reported that “much of these protests are coordinated by public relations firms and lobbyists who have a stake in opposing President Obama’s reforms.”

The lobbyist-run groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which orchestrated the anti-Obama tea parties earlier this year, are now pursuing an aggressive strategy to create an image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, details how members should be infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress.

The memo included such instructions as “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

Also, “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”

Yesterday, Brian Beutler at TPMDC reported on another player in the protests, an organization called Conservatives for Patients Rights:

On Friday, July 24, a representative of Conservatives for Patients Rights — the anti-health care reform group run by disgraced hospital executive Rick Scott, in conjunction with the message men behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth — sent an email to a list serve (called the Tea Party Patriots Health Care Reform Committee) containing a spreadsheet that lists over one hundred congressional town halls from late July into September.

The email from CPR to tea baggers suggests that, though conservatives portray the ** disruptions as symptoms of a populist rebellion roiling unprompted through key districts around the country, they have to a great extent been orchestrated by anti-health care reform groups financed by industry.

So far, writes Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic, the response from the White House and Democrats has been to “ridicule the opposition — and portray those who disrupt meetings with loud chants and signs as part of the same ilk of people who showed up at campaign rallies for John McCain and Sarah Palin right after the 2008 Republican National Convention.”

A party strategist e-mailed around a clip from Rep. Lloyd Doggett’s town hall meeting. At one point, a sign featuring Nazi lettering can be seen. Another strategist with ties to the White House made sure to point out that a popular sign at these rallies features Obama, in Shepherd Fairy-esque ink, as the Joker (although it’s not clear how many signs have been seen at actual rallies). A White House official pointed to press secretary Robert Gibbs’s comparison to the 2000 “protest” at Miami-Dade county election headquarters organized and peopled with young conservative lawyers.

“Patronizing opponents is a tried and true tradition in Washington, and Democrats have used the tactic with success,” writes Ambinder, but there’s a bigger issue here.

The more troublesome question for Democratic strategists is why the major Democratic groups, including Organizing for America, the labor unions, Health Care for America Now, seem to be flatfooted and unable to match the much smaller conservative organizing capacity in these critical districts. One answer is that the media pays attention to the loudest voices, which are coming from the right. The other is that organizing around major — even popular — reforms of existing institutions is tough. The Democrats don’t have a single bill right now, and the elite left is worried about what’s not in the cards — a public plan — and is therefore fairly unenthusiastic. If the liberal elite isn’t enthusiastic, the liberal base — less knowledgeable — will be as well.

Where exactly is Organizing for America in all of this? Greg Sargent reminds us that “OFA has been regularly announcing new initiatives throwing its weight into the push for reform. It recently announced events in all 50 states and has regularly been calling for shows of spontaneous pushback against G.O.P. obstructionism.”

In other words, OFA is supposed to be doing exactly what the right is now doing: Staging very visible displays of passionate support for their side’s goal — i.e., health care reform.

I don’t know if OFA is succeeding or not. If so, its successes are decidedly less visible than what we’re seeing from the anti-reform forces, though this could reflect the fact that OFA events don’t emply the raucus agitprop we’re seeing from anti-reform crowds.

But OFA’s activities, and those of the Democratic Party in general, are suddenly are much more important, now that there appears to be a very deliberate right-wing effort under way to create the impression of populist opposition to reform. It’s yet another reminder that health care is the ultimate test of whether Obama’s vaunted campaign operation can drive Obama’s legislative agenda and achieve real results.

For Digby at Hullabaloo, the Town Hall outbursts are entirely “predictable.” Reform opponents “are following the 1994 playbook and they did the same thing then.”

As an example, Digby offers an excerpt from a PBS timeline of the health-care fight 15 years ago:

July 22, 1994 - Trying to win back the kind of political support that brought them to the White House, the administration plans a bus trek across America to generate their own grassroots message to Congress for reform. A kickoff rally in Portland, Oregon, is marred by anti-Clinton protesters. When the first buses reach the highway they find a broken-down bus wreathed in red tape symbolizing government bureaucracy and hitched to a tow truck labeled, “This is Clinton Health Care.” . . .

July 23, 1994 - Following several days of anti-Hillary rhetoric on local talk shows, Hillary Clinton — at a bus rally in Seattle — is confronted by hundreds of angry men shouting that the Clintons are going to destroy their way of life, ban guns, extend abortion rights, protect gays, and socialize medicine. When she finishes speaking and tries to leave the rally, her limousine is surrounded by protesters. Each of the four caravan routes becomes an expedition into enemy territory — with better-armed, better-prepared, better-mobilized anti-Clinton protesters at each stop along the way. Local reform groups and caravan organizers are forced to cancel scheduled stops because of implicit threats of violence.

Back to Digby: “I’m sure the Democrats all remember this and are prepared for it this time. Right?”

Source

This is America, it is Democracy which allows us to stand up and let our voices be heard. The Left wants this and the right wants that and it is by this process that a truly free people can work side by side sometimes in agreement, sometimes not.

Do not look to STOMP the opposition into the ground. Listen to both sides. The day one side is silenced is the day that the America that we know is gone, perhaps forever.

A true political leader accepts that there will be people that will bitterly disagree with his ideals. If he seeks to shut those voices down by radical means, this is when you stop and really consider what is at stake. We live in a dangerous time here in the USA. We are Americans first. Never forget that.

[alienlovechild 75]

Why does everything seem to smack of cudgel-wielding thugs breaking up, say, anti-slavery meetings in the 19th century.

Why does any dissent now link all protestors as racists? That's why there will never be a black president peacefully elected in this country.

So what's the best way of dealing with these people ?

Demonize 'em and ignore whatever they say. Working like a charm so far.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Why does everything seem to smack of cudgel-wielding thugs breaking up, say, anti-slavery meetings in the 19th century.

Why does any dissent now link all protestors as racists? That's why there will never be a black president peacefully elected in this country.

So what's the best way of dealing with these people ?

Demonize 'em and ignore whatever they say. Working like a charm so far.

Wow red herring much? And what does this have to do with the claims in this article?

[alienlovechild 75]

Wow red herring much? And what does this have to do with the claims in this article?

My mistake. I thought you added your own comments and I responded accordingly. Of course, it could have an imposter abusing your good name. Look into it.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Oh grow up.