Somewhat unexpectedly, at least to me, my part of the world has turned into a hotbed of teabag activity. There was a major tea-ruption at a recent Dan Maffei (NY-25) townhall meeting and a friend just forwarded me an email from some winger mailing list about plans to teabag all of Eric Massa’s (NY-29) townhall meetings. I’m hoping to get friends to send me a lot of good footage of this.
Now, I have to be honest, I’m afraid there is a real fear of a teabagger going too far and doing something violent. But I also think that best chance to stop from happening is to turn this into a political liability for Republicans and that probably involves mockery.
Marc Ambinder sees the teabagging as a righteous display of God-fearing middle-American anger (neo-birfer Sully apprently agrees). The key with all of this is how it gets framed. If it continues to be framed as righteous red-state anger, it will probably continue until a teabagger shoots someone. If it’s mocked as the delusional right-wing craziness that it is, maybe it will be nipped in the bud.
gizmo
This is a huge opportunity for the Democrats to just give the wingers some rope and let them hang themselves. My only fear is that the corporate media is going to spin this issue the wrong way, as usual.
General Winfield Stuck
Marc Ambinder is a gold plated jack ass, with all his Bush SS comparisons with these malignant fools. I don’t remember dems shouting down Bush’s townhalls for the purpose of shutting them down. And it was rare that a dem got anywhere near them without getting arrested. Even the ones who were sitting quietly.
Fuck these asshats and break out the baseball bats. That is my fantasy on debating these trolls.
xj - not the auto
Maddow just had a piece about Arlen Specter’s town hall that was hijacked by ringers. They shouted down the sec hhs too, as she tried to speak. Aapparently there is an organized movement lead by corporate interests that is sandbagging these legit events. this will get plenty of airplay in the next few days. this is why it was important to get the legislation done before the break. sad days for america.
Dr. Loveless
I’d pay good money to have some teabaggers show up at my Congresscritter’s next townhall. Here, the only crazies who show up are the 9/11 Truthers, and they’re not nearly as much fun to point and laugh at.
cmorenc
Great idea! Now how you gonna go about doing that is the hard part, unless you have an inside scoop on how to get a handle on the bulk of the MSM to get them to go along your way.
Look how hard it was to get the MSM to properly frame the birther nonsense, looney as that was. Finally the corner did sharply turn on that, but it should have been a gimme and it wasn’t. The problem is that the MSM wants a storyline that attracts viewership/readership/attention, and you have to figure out a convincing hook to convince them quickly that “crazy” is the right, most salient hook to sell to get positive attention for the media outlet’s programming/writing. Look how much pseudo-credibility the MSM gave the teabag movement the first time around.
Again, it’s going to take some very media-savvy types on our side to get this turned around quickly in our favor, rather than having to suffer a couple of weeks of insufficiently critical coverage that rides the wave of “dissatisfaction with Obama beginning to creep upwards” meme that seems to be the theme of the month.
Rosali
What’s the best way to counteract this thing? How can people hear their rep’s stand on the issues if (s)he is getting shouted down? Trying to out-shout them won’t work.
jwb
@gizmo
The corporate media is going to spin this issue the wrong way, so the question is does that alter the calculation with respect to the rope.
Had a surprising tea-ruption at a townhall meeting in my neck of the woods as well, and it wasn’t pleasant.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Chris Matthews, Michael Smerconish and Politico’s Jonathan Martin were discussing the “sandbaggers” and it left a bad taste in my mouth. In the video clip the anti-healthcare ratfuckers claimed Clash-for-Clunkers was botched policy and said the government would screw-up healthcare reform the same way – and the Hardball! crew agreed that it was a valid complaint.
The media is going to play it as legit until something disturbing happens and then they will pretend to have condemned it all along.
DougJ
What’s the best way to counteract this thing?
I think it’s mockery. Find good clips, put them on the web, hope some get picked by the Comedy Central or somewhere else on tv.
MikeJ
It will in fact just add to the noise and make it sound as if you are with them.
If you could get a fair sized group together ahead of time there are things you could do, like hold up “Shhh!” signs together. But you’d need to have an idea of who you were handing them out to beforehand.
Joy
I was thinking about how to counter this, and one idea I had was to use a neutral facilitator at these meetings. I have been to a lot of public meetings/hearings where a facilitator “facilitates” the discussion (often controversial) and one of the first things that happens is an adoption of “ground rules” that includes basic rules of civility–one person talks at a time, no adhominen attacks, etc. If you don’t abide by the ground rules, you are not allowed to stay. This seems like it may be a reasonable way to regain control and allow a reasoned discussion between the congress person and his or her constituents.
r€nato
This sabotage-the-town-halls strategy demonstrates once again that the defining characteristic of right-wing politics is… revenge. Pure and simple.
The Clinton witch-hunts were revenge for impeaching Nixon, after all.
General Winfield Stuck
@DougJ:
Your right of course. and to arrest for disorderly conduct would give Malkin et al multiple orgasms of outrage at the Gestapo dems shutting down free speech.
But still,,,,,
pip
JReynolds at the Houston Chron is both a gun nut and a constituent of Sheila Jackson Lee — the focus of much wingnut hate. I’ve been looking for Jackson Lee to have a townhall in the hopes that I can go into it and ask who has a gun.
Just to stir things up.
Zam
Well I am personally worried that when the videos are played it will be spun as angry constituents voicing their dislike of the health plan. That is if they can keep from doing what one group did recently which was just to shout the pledge of allegiance at officials.
Beeb
Maybe all the non-teabaggers should bring signs saying “Unlike these corporate shills, I actually live and vote here.” At the very least, each Congressional press person should have copies of that FreedomWorks memo to give the local reporters. As for Ambinder and Sully, ptui. Also feh.
El Cid
Would it really be so difficult to resurrect the same people on Clinton-era paranoiac addictions like Vince Foster and the Russian-UN invasion using bar codes on the backs of stop signs and how the establishment doctors don’t want to tell you that you can kill all the germs in your body by taking colloidal silver*?
That last one has the benefit of permanently turning colloidal silver takers blue. Literally, blue.
amorphous
@gizmo:
Took the words right off of my fingertips.
pip
You know, like the Mentalist commercial. I think I’d get a number of hits. Then the shouters would be identified . . .
It’s just what I’m thinking. . . .
Max
President Obama receives over 30 death threats per day, up 400% from W.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5967942/Barack-Obama-faces-30-death-threats-a-day-stretching-US-Secret-Service.html
The GOP must be so proud.
The Grand Panjandrum
Josh Marshall debunked this BS. Maybe we should take up a collection for Ambinder and buy him a plexiglass stomach. That way whenever he gets his head stuck up his ass he can see out.
Midnight Marauder
@DougJ:
I think you’re spot on with mockery being the best weapon to expose these clowns as the intellectual bankrupt morans they actually are. I’m sure the Comedy Central crew (Stewart and Colbert) will take care of their responsibilities, as usual. But I think it’s going to be up to the “cheeto-eating dickweeds” of the blogosphere to really push the Traditional Media into framing the story as “Wow…look at what THESE crazy motherfuckers are up to this time.”
As of now, I have little faith that will happen in the immediate future. But as the crazies on the right have demonstrated time and time again, just when you think they’ve achieved some sort of apex in batshit insanity, they find new ways to blow the mind every time.
I think by the end of the week, some winger will say/do something that even someone like Tweety will have problems turning on the cognitive dissonance and then the pendulum will begin to swing against them.
Or not.
pip
Max, not to put a damper on your comment — just the opposite — I think the target range has widened.
DougJ
Maybe we should take up a collection for Ambinder and buy him a plexiglass stomach.
You’re talking about a pretty serious amount of plexiglass. Have you seen the guy?
Midnight Marauder
@Zam:
Well I am personally worried that when the videos are played it will be spun as angry constituents voicing their dislike of the health plan. That is if they can keep from doing what one group did recently which was just to shout the pledge of allegiance at officials.
I think everyone here will agree that self-control is not these individuals’ strong point.
Mike in NC
Isn’t the douchebag Ambinder really a Jonah Goldberg wannabe?
Rosali
@DougJ:
I think it’s mockery. Find good clips, put them on the web, hope some get picked by the Comedy Central or somewhere else on tv.
Yes, I agree; mock them. But I’m talking about during the actual townhall meeting. My rep, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, supports healthcare reform. I’d like to actually hear her position on the public option and I would like interested audience members, particularly the elderly and the uninsured, get answers to their questions. I’m afraid that the clowns will disrupt and one thing leads to another and someone (me?) ends up arrested.
different church-lady
It’s amazing: they’ve gone from “THE RULE OF LAW!!!!!” to anarchy in just 12 short years.
Comrade Kevin
@El Cid: Ah, early 90’s shortwave radio!
The Moar You Know
Way too late. The MSM is kept afloat by large infusions of cash from pharma and health-care companies – this will be spun as righteous taxpayer anger, regardless of whether someone gets shot or not – you may recall we’ve had at least four shootings in this nation since Obama was elected that were motivated by nothing by pure right-wing rage – and in every case the silence has been deafening. There’s only one way to stop this, and it will have a political cost, namely, shutting down all the townhalls. Bad as that would be, I think giving the MSM the manufactured footage of Joe Taxpayer about to be pushed into foreclosure/bankruptcy/butthurt by the Evil Kenyan Preznits
Euthanasia For Useless Old PeopleHappy Unity Pony Care Plan would be way worse.Won’t happen though. Lucy’s got the ball and Charlie Brown can’t resist.
inkadu
I used to have a neighbor I used to play with. His name was John. John was a little psycho. If he broke something, he’d blame it on me and his mother would send me home. If John squirted soap water into my eyes and I hit him, it was my fault. If John spilled coke on the carpet, it was my fault. Whatever John did, I was blamed for and sent home.
Please keep this story in mind when trying to figure out how best to control the MSM response.
I will be over here praying to St. Jude.
Cat Lady
Let all the nutjobs expose themselves so we can see them once and for all. They’re beyond embarrassing, and are not mockable. I think the DC media establishment is increasingly finding itself in a twisted karmic knot, as the consequences of letting the crazy out and into the mainstream will now come back to so deservedly bite them. To be taken seriously, the Very Serious People will have to disavow the crazy, and it better happen soon.
Texas Dem
What’s the best way to counteract this thing?
Simple. You counteract it by instilling FEAR in the opposition. We need to start packing these town halls with our own people–people who are not afraid to break to get in the faces of these thugs and make them back down. Appeasement never works. The thugs on the right must be forcefully confronted. That’s the only language they understand.
inkadu
Violence is inevitable, folks. We have mobs of deranged nutjobs with paranoid delusions of grandeur and we have frustrated Americans dying from lack of health care.
There are not two great tastes that taste great together.
devopsych
I’ve been saying this, get some of these nirther teabaggers on a youtube interview clip and it will go viral. You know they can’t help themselves, no matter who is astro-ing their turf. Macacca they asses.
Texas Dem
Violence is inevitable, folks.
Agreed. The country is already in what amounts to a state of civil war. There’s been no serious violence–yet. But that’s inevitable. The ideological divide between left and right is unbridgeable.
inkadu
Simple. You counteract it by instilling FEAR in the opposition. We need to start packing these town halls with our own people—people who are not afraid to break to get in the faces of these thugs and make them back down. Appeasement never works. The thugs on the right must be forcefully confronted. That’s the only language they understand.
You sound like an Israeli or a Palestinian.
If your goal is to have open conversation in a democratic environment, force can’t be that answer. They will fight you right back and nobody will know anything about health care because Chuck Liddel will be doing post-debate analysis on Muy Thai techniques.
The way to fix this is with responsible adults controlling traffic into town halls and calmly removing people who are disruptive. That is it period. If they want to make a big deal about being shut out of the debate, then fine; however, whingeing about being shut out of the debate is boring copy.
Rosali
If a quiet, peaceful librarian can get ticketed and escorted out of a McCain townhall for a having a McCain=Bush sign, then the congresspersons should have the police at hand for teabaggers who get disruptive, threatening, and potentially violent.
Church Lady
Doug, You often bring the possibility of violence up, being perpetrated by a right-wing conservative, of course. Are you hoping something will happen? Sometimes it sounds like it. It migh be time to shelve that particular talking point, IMHO.
Walker
The area of the 29th is a very conservative portion of NYS. That whole corridor along 17 (“future I-86”) is prime wingnut territory. I would be very surprised if no tea-baggers showed up.
thruppence
If a representative is having a townhall meeting to discuss issues with his or her constituents, attendance should be limited to those who have ID that show that they actually live in that representative’s district.
Jaquestraw
We’re coming to get get you,we’re coming to get you
KCinDC
Yes, Church Lady, after all, it’s inconceivable that right-wingers would resort to violence. No doubt the families of those who’ve already been killed will take comfort in the fact that it was only a talking point. We clearly have nothing to fear from the red-faced shouters with hate signs and paranoid ideas about the government coming to take their guns, and people hanging others in effigy are just misunderstood.
DougJ
You often bring the possibility of violence up, being perpetrated by a right-wing conservative, of course. Are you hoping something will happen? Sometimes it sounds like it. It migh be time to shelve that particular talking point, IMHO.
From the families of all the people who died in Oklahoma City, fuck you, you right-wing idiot. Fuck you.
Honestly, get the hell out of my comment section.
General Winfield Stuck
@Church Lady:
Yea that’s right Cl, it’s dems causing this by bringing it up and when violnece gets going it will also be dems to blame. It’s dems who sent crowds of screaming lunatics to shut down their own meetings. It’s dems who caused the several murders of liberals by GOP fanatics this year. And of course, it’s dems causing the RW Birther insanity. GFY.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Church Lady: Do you really doubt that someone will try something stupid? Look at the level of second-amendment craziness (buying up guns/ammo) and the birther craze. Combined with reports like this about the insane number of death threats the President receives and how the Secret Service is stretched to the limit covering them, and I think most people would conclude it’s only a matter of time. Will they succeed? I doubt it.
Look, I’m as suspicious of inflammatory rhetoric as the next guy, and I concern troll a lot too, but this is a level of right-wing resentment/outrage not seen in a long time.
kay
I’m waiting for conservatives to do a whip-a-round 180 on disorderly conduct charges and what constitutes “public” and “speech”, myself.
I’m fairly certain a mob chasing someone through a publicly owned street or parking lot and screaming at them fits the strict definition of “disorderly”, in my state, anyway.
Not that I want them arrested, but, then, I’m consistent.
Maybe it only matters if you’re disorderly AND disrespecting a cop?
devopsych
Violence, I believe, would be counter productive. As much as I may feel inclined towards it, as much health care is a life and death issue for me now, no. Maybe some hugely biceped guys standing around in single payer tee shirts and some vets in wheelchairs would be good. Couple few granmas.
IndieTarheel
@inkadu: Grew up next to Grandpa Walnuts, didya?
The Grand Panjandrum
@Church Lady: No. I think he has the same concerns many of us have. This smells a lot like the run up to the Oklahoma City bombing when wingnuts went batshit insane over ever little thing Clinton did (or didn’t) do. It only took a few deranged, but determined murdering thugs to kill hundreds of innocent Americans in a government building.
Chalk this up to worrying “out loud” because we’ve seen this rodeo before.
Rosali
Maybe the congresspersons can have Youtube townhalls where constituents submit questions via video and the rep responds (similar to the ’08 debate). Local tv stations should host these and they get to pick the video questions and the rep has to explain his/her position while being filmed in the tv studio. This would be fair to the congresspersons (no shouting) but would also force them to have and defend cogent positions on the issues.
Ed Drone
They have the how-to manual for these, right? How about a slide-show or oversize signs with the techniques these people have been told to use. When one of them tries to interrupt, hold up the list and ask, “Which paid shill are you? Did you come from out of state, or just out of my district? Did you sit in various parts of the hall, to make it look like your numbers are larger?”
Another method would be arrests, with the home towns of the disrupting assholes heavily publicized. Another method would simply be to hold up signs for the various insurance companies and health-care monopolies and ask “Who’s here from Blue Cross? Who’s here from Cigna?” These nutjobs would probably cheer, and then you ask, “Why are you cheering these monopolies, these mega-corporations who buy and sell Congressmen and the media?”
And lastly, when they start to interrupt, break into the pledge of allegiance or “God Bless America” or some other crowd-unity activity. At the end, thank them for their participation. If they shout again, do it again. They’ll be seen trying to shout down the Pledge or Kate Smith, both of which are losing propositions.
Ed
Thomas Levenson
I Godwin-ed myself over at my place already, so I’ll just say I’ve been watching the video already and I can’t stop thinking “last days of Weimar.”
I know we’re not going down that road…but neither were they until it got really wobbly. I’d rather be paranoid and wrong than complacent and wronger.
That said, I don’t know quite what to do — except to try to tie Orly Taitz to every winger in sight.
TuiMel
These town hall “shout downs” recall to my mind the “Brooks Brothers Riot” during the 2000 FL recount. Will these people get portrayed as the thugs they are or as some sort of working class heroes? It does not surprise me that Chris Mathews thinks it is the latter. He likes to think of himself as having some sort of romantic connection with all the “Joe Sixpacks” out there. He is a dolt but the mythology he espouses runs strong and deep with many people.
There is lunacy afoot in our society; the right cannot and will not accept Obama so sabotage is their weapon of choice. If I go to a town hall, I will take a whistle with me, and I will blow it every time one of these freaks tries to hijack the discussion. Such behavior is rude, counter-productive, and absolutely expected. They owe their neighbors a civil dialogue, but civility is not in the play book.
Texas Dem
We’re going to see this escalate until something terrible happens. Probably an assassination (needless to say, I hope I’m wrong about that). And then the media focus will shift and all of this right wing extremist nonsense will hang around the necks of Republicans like a 500 pound led weight. They’re really playing with fire. In many ways it’s far more dangerous than what they did to the Clintons in the 1990s because of the undercurrent of racism. It’s like pouring gasoline on your BBQ grill.
JK
OT
More Right Wing Crazy Behavior from a Glenn Beck Fan
Nancy Genovese, a Quogue New York woman remained in custody Monday on a trespassing charge after law enforcement officers found a shotgun, an assault rifle and a cache of ammunition in the front seat of her car, parked just outside the grounds of the Air National Guard base in Westhampton Beach
h/t http://www.newsday.com/sheriffs-woman-arrested-at-air-base-had-guns-in-car-1.1345260
Genovese is a Glenn Beck fan, according to her MySpace page (archived here) http://www.webcitation.org/mainframe.php . “He is mad as hell and so are we. He is right and so are we”, writes Genovese, who also posted a video of a Glenn Beck rant.
h/t http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/2/760870/-Glenn-Beck-Fan,-Highly-Armed,-Busted-For-Casing-National-Guard-Base,-Thinking-It-Was-A-FEMA-Camp-
More background at http://crooksandliars.com/node/30154/print
Marc Ambinder is a douchebag
DougJ
I Godwin-ed myself over at my place already, so I’ll just say I’ve been watching the video already and I can’t stop thinking “last days of Weimar.”
It’s good to see someone more pessimistic than I am about this.
kay
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
The CATO lawyer thinks Obama should quell the birther’s fury, by acceding to their demands. I’m not clear on whether he thinks the President should actually meet with them in person. That would be almost reckless on Obama’s part, so he can’t mean that. Maybe through a diplomatic envoy?
I have just the go-between. The CATO lawyer can meet with them, at his home. He can tell us all how it went.
El Cid
@Comrade Kevin: You’re listening to World Harvest Radio International… Or was it “The Hour of the Time…” Or was it WWCR?
Montysano
How do you fight this?
Sadly, you really can’t. There are places I’m just not willing to go in order to win a debate. I can’t lie, I can’t obfuscate, I won’t be a hooligan and prevent democracy. If my opponent is willing to do all those things and much more, in a heartbeat, without a moment’s pause, then I’m fucked. Throw in a compliant media and an audience that’s satisfied with being lied to, and I’m double-fucked. The only consolation is that I’m so glad I’m not one of those people.
tripletee (formerly tBone)
@Church Lady:
I could be wrong since I’m not fluent in Dipshit, but it looks to me like concern troll is concerned.
Sibelius
My congressman (Mike Honda, CA 15) is having a telephone town hall that requires a “verifiable address, zip code and telephone area code” open only to constituents. Sounds like a way around the Teabaggers.
steve s
Buncha concern trolls.
Quackers
The Palin rallies have never ended. Different excuse to act out their rage against Obama, but the same signs carried by the same incredibly stupid angry people. They are going to hurt someone before it’s over.
JenJen
I think this kind of agit-prop can be highly successful and certainly has been in the past. Just getting some attention on Drudge or getting Rush to talk about it helps whip up the base a little bit more and maybe a few more people will attend a Teabagging Event or kick in a few bucks. But the potential for backfire here is huge, and I think they’re really going to screw this up.
These people at these town halls on my television don’t seem reasonable or exceptionally intelligent and they don’t have anything particularly interesting to say. Their very unhinged quality is far more likely to turn off more people than turn on. I don’t think Americans actually appreciate people who shout others down. I don’t believe for one moment that it’s persuasive. Their behavior might thrill the choir, but to me, they seem out of their time, like throwbacks. They have the potential to do as many favors for the Democrats as the Yippies did for Nixon.
Maddow showed a video I hadn’t seen yet of a polite town hall attendee asking a Congress member why he wasn’t supporting single-payer, and that person was shouted down by a Teabagger. This is where I think there is also the most potential for violence, that moment of conflict where you believe your right to free speech supersedes mine. I find the entire development to be disturbing, and I don’t appreciate anyone who can’t respect simple rules of order in a public setting. But really, I don’t think it’s going to work; I only hope it stops before somebody gets hurt.
JK
OT
In case anyone missed Keith Olbermann tonight, he named Brian Stelter one of his Worst Persons in the World. Stelter wrote the NY Times article about a ceasefire between MSNBC and Fox News.
Stelter is a former blogger who created TV Newser. He was a douchebag back then and he’s still a douchebag.
The reputation of the NY Times is going down the drain because of dipshits like Brian Stelter and Alessandra Stanley.
Tom
The Orly Taitzers.
The Orly Taitzer wing of the Republican Party.
Brick Oven Bob is an Orly Taitzer.
I like it.
inkadu
If it’s just going to becoming a shouting/singing match, we need to pick a song.
I recommend the Internationale.
Stand up, all victims of oppression,
For the tyrants fear your might!
Don’t cling so hard to your possessions,
For you have nothing if you have no rights!
Let racist ignorance be ended,
For respect makes the empires fall!
Freedom is merely privilege extended,
Unless enjoyed by one and all.
So come brothers and sisters,
For the struggle carries on.
The Internationale,
Unites the world in song.
So comrades, come rally,
For this is the time and place UNDER GOD!
The international ideal,
Unites the human race.
Church Lady
Doug, get over yourself. And learn how to control your anger. Sometimes you sound just like those you rail against.
@The Main Gauche: I hope no one does try anything stupid, but then there are quite a few stupid people in this country, so I suppose the possibility is always out there. I still doubt anything would be driven by politics rather than mental illness, and mental illness isn’t confined to right wingers.
As far as gun/ammo sales, I think this was driven more by fear of possible gun control issues than people arming themselves for the insurrection. When the run on ammo entered public awareness, my father-in-law and husband went out and loaded up. For hunting, not shooting people.
Birthers share the same level of insanity that Truthers do. I prefer to just ignore both.
pattonbt
If this is OT or has been said, my apologies, but one thing strikes me about this whole healthcare debate, the birthers and this disruption process regarding Obama….
The key thing with Obama is that his long game (which at times I hate with a passion, because I want some counter punching) seems to let the idiocy build until it falls in on itself and becomes a joke. This has seemed to work pretty much all the time for him.
Now, will it always work? Probably not. Im sure as goodwill and political capital dissipate, which they will, he’ll have to go more on the offensive, but here its probably still good. This will turn out like the Palin rally nonsense and the ‘inadequate black man’ junk where the purveyors of this crap will be so emboldened and jazzed up that they will eventually cross the line and by the time the rubber hits the road for legislation the crazy wind will mostly have already been taken out of the sails.
That may be a lot of wishful thinking, and I still dont believe sufficient health care reform will come this time around, but by the time a bill is ready to go, the opposition will have shot its wad (so to speak) and they will be left with either a heaping helpful of STFU or Crazy to Eleventy!!!!! Either case is not good for the opposition.
Texas Dem
“I recommend the Internationale.”
I couldn’t find the clip but there is a great scene from “The Hunt for Red October” where the sailors are singing the Internationale. I’d say that should be our response, except that I don’t speak Russian. Perhaps we should sing in Spanish. That would really piss them off.
DougJ
Doug, get over yourself. And learn how to control your anger. Sometimes you sound just like those you rail against.
Honestly, could you just go back to your antique store and your perfect sorority kids and leave us alone?
steve s
dang, tripletee beat me to it.
pattonbt
One more quick thing, what will hurt this disruption process is what killed Palin and Clinton at the tail end of the primaries (not that she was responsible for the crazy PUMA’s) – video.
Now that the Dems are wise, we’ve got enough lay about socialist college kids with video phones who will go these meetings now and record the crazies. That will not paint them in a good light and expose the insanity and actually, I think, help build resolve on the left and center.
The R party seems to forget its the 21st century. Crazy gets recorded and youtubed forever!
someguy
Any time they stand up and start talking, shout them down, blow whistles, get in their faces and intimidate them. If that doesn’t work, well, you might consider direct action. Guess that means you’d better bring friends. If you don’t stop right wing extremism now, you aren’t going to get a chance to stop it later. Given all the attacks the wingerz have pulled off this spring and summer, it’s probably reckless not to try to silence them now before they gain momentum.
Ailuridae
@JenJen:
Unless I missed something, that meeting was one of those referenced by DougJ in his post as I am pretty sure I heard it was a town hall in Syracuse which is where Dan Maffei is headquartered.
I might have misheard though.
Texas Dem
For our next Town Hall sing along:
LA INTERNACIONAL
Arriba, parias de la Tierra.
En pie, famélica legión.
Los proletarios gritan: Guerra!
Guerra hasta el fin de la opresión.
Borrad el rastro del pasado!
Arriba, esclavos, todos en pié!
el mundo va a cambiar de base,
los nada de hoy todo han de ser.
Agrupémonos todos,
en la lucha final.
El género humano
es la internacional.
(bis)
Church Lady
@DougJ:
In other words, leave you to your echo chamber? I lose more and more respect for you with almost every post. You truly are a one note song. At least John is willing to be challenged on the things he writes, and usually defends them in a civil manner. You’re not capable of doing that. Pity.
Halteclere
What is the saying – if you can’t lick them, join them? If every time a tea bagger starts disrupting a town hall just yell real loud “And Obama is a racist!”. Make it seem like you are one of them, only more strident and more deranged. You get to have some fun while also making tea baggers look bad (or make them show their true colors).
Nothing sucks more than having your clique co-oped. Kind of like when parents start adopting the slang of their children, the children no longer think it is cool anymore.
geg6
Church Lady: Tell it to the cops, and doctor, and minister and everyone who has died or been blatantly and viciously threatened with violence by the Right just in the last year. Don’t get me started about which political pole spewed out the likes of people like Eric Rudolph, Tim McVeigh, and their ilk. If liberals and progressives are being targeted and dying at the hands of rightwingers, we have every reason to point that out and warn people that it is happening. If these people have a point beyond creating chaos and brutality, then why resort to such tactics? Why ship in outsiders to whip up ugliness? Why lie about the most ridiculous things, like Dems want to kill the elderly? Why permanently alienate 0hispanics with racist and sexist attacks on Sotomayor? None of this has anything to do with policy. It is nothing more than thuggishness with a complete contempt for their own base. I don’t know how anyone could be a Republican and have an ounce of self-respect. Their leaders hate them more than they hate Dems. They know we know they’re lying. But they expect the base to believe all their lies whatever they may be: tax cuts forevah! or Saddam has WMD or drill, baby, drill or we have the best health care in the world. And whaddaya know, the base does. And then dials it up to eleventy. And afterwards, the fine leaders of the GOP will solemnly intone that no one could ever have predicted. Fuck that and, frankly, you.
General Winfield Stuck
@JenJen:
Unhinged, yep. and the subject of their displeasure is Healthcare reform. While many people out there have concerns about cost which are legit concerns, and others have worries about reform affecting their HC coverage they like, and other non legit concerns about govment taking over the whole system, like a VA situation,. It is indisputable that the overwhelming majority want some big changes, for their individual reasons. And they want it explained in a rational way.
Scenes of mobs yelling sockalist, and, show us the birth cert. to the point of obnoxia doesn’t really fit well with the situation as it is. This is when you get backlash.
KCinDC
And in the media you will be counted as one of the “angry constituents” disrupting the town hall because of your opposition to health care reform.
General Winfield Stuck
@Church Lady:
You didn’t challenge anything. You brought pacified non-sense completely out of touch with what is going on. Or, if you talk about what is going on, it is somehow your fault that it happens. Co-dependent horseshit and that is not suffered well here. Again GFY Church Lady. do it twice.
DougJ
In other words, leave you to your echo chamber? I lose more and more respect for you with almost every post. You truly are a one note song. At least John is willing to be challenged on the things he writes, and usually defends them in a civil manner. You’re not capable of doing that. Pity.
If you’re trying to insult me, you’ll have to do better.
And let’s be clear: you accused me of hoping for violence. You expect me to respond to that politely?
Wile E. Quixote
I’d like to see someone take pictures of the crowds at these things and then dump them into some image comparator software and look for the same faces. It would be interesting to see how many of these people really are shills who go from event to event.
Ash Can
@Church Lady: Forget it, Church Lady. I’m often willing to defend you and your viewpoints, but the fact is, nowadays it’s the right wing that’s dangerous and an ongoing threat for violence. It’s not a matter of anger on the left wing’s part, and it’s not a matter of intellectual debate. It’s a matter of cold, hard statistics, and the American right wing is on the short end of the numbers. No amount of wishful thinking is going to change that.
Scott
The best strategy is publicity. Mockery can be part of it, but publicizing the lunatics is something that can’t be neglected.
Remember what helped push the birthers into the “easily mockable” category was the video of the town hall meeting with the crazy lady waving her birth certificate baggie around. The initial videos of this weren’t full of mockery — just the videos, letting the insanity speak for itself. After a day or so of everyone going “What the fuck was that?!”, the mockery started and never ended.
I’d say every one of these town hall meetings needs a liberal there with a video camera — just some nondescript person with a camera, not easily identifiable as liberal or conservative, so as not to arouse the wrath of either the Brooks Bros. rioters or the local officials.
Film the crazies, put it on YouTube. It won’t matter how much Tweety wants everyone to love the rioters when everyone else is laughing at how delusional they are.
asiangrrlMN
I am worried as well that the vile rhetoric from the right will spill over into violence. I worried about Obama’s safety all throughout the campaign, and I worry about it now. It just takes one or two nutjobs, and there is a concentrated minority on the right who is getting ready to below. I believe DougJ is speaking the truth. This kinda shit can spin out of control very easily. I don’t find the teabaggers amusing. I don’t find this disruption of the town hall meetings amusing. In fact, I am tired of all this shit.
Do I want violence to happen? Hell no. I just don’t know how to derail that train as long as the traditional media and the operatives on the right are dedicated to making it happen (for different reasons, of course).
Concern trolling about the possibility of violence from the fringe on the right is not amusing, either.
Wile E. Quixote
Texas Dem
No kidding, you don’t deal with a bunch of assholes like this by reasoning with them, you deal with them the way we dealt with the Nazis or the Klan. You get in their faces and call them on their bullshit, and once you do you find out that many, if not most of these guys are chickenshit because being loud and chickenshit is oh so very Republican. Don’t believe me? Well OK, then go and name 10 prominent conservatives under the age of 70 who have served in the military. What, you can’t name 10? OK, how about 5? What, 5 is too hard?”. Come on, how hard could it be?
Brachiator
But I also think that best chance to stop from happening is to turn this into a political liability for Republicans and that probably involves mockery.
You can mock Republican office holders and pundits, and the craziest wingnuts, but teabaggers aren’t necessarily crazy.
I would give them what they want. For example:
Michelle Malkin thinks you’re a lazy, no-good for nothing bum if you apply for unemployment insurance. If this is what you want, when I go back to Washington, I’ll vote to get the government off your back by eliminating all unemployment programs.
The Republicans tell you that the best health system in the country is one that lets insurance companies drop you as soon as you get sick and that can let you die if you have a pre-existing condition. If this is what you want, when I go back to Washington, I will vote to get the government off your back by eliminating every health insurance regulation that protects you against a catastrophic illness. And we will get rid of COBRA. Why should you be able to get health insurance at a lower rate when you get laid off?
But don’t be fooled. The Republicans don’t want a level playing field, not when they invite the special interests and the corporations and the lobbyists to write legislation that guarantees that they will make huge profits at your expense.
You try to hijack this meeting talking about tea bags. But if you want to get sandbagged by the Republicans, let me know. Then, when you or your spouse or your children can’t get the critical medical care that you need because it’s not good for the insurance company bottom line, you can go ask the Republicans for help. And they’ll tell you that if you didn’t save up so you could pay your own medical bills, then you are lazy, a sucker, a jerk. But maybe they’ll have a tea bag for you.
Church Lady
@DougJ:
I did NOT accuse you of hoping for violence. I asked if you were, which I believe qualifies as a question, and said that sometimes it SOUNDS like you do. Perhaps that is because you express that concern on a somewhat consistant basis.
Just out of curiosity, what is your line of demarcation between violence born of politics and violence born of mental illness or some other set of beliefs or reasons? How do you assign the blame?
ninerdave
@Rosali:
Show up at your reps town halls, email and call them.
Here’s the official Tea Party list:
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/TownHalls.aspx
Go. Be there. I’ll be at my local one for sure. In fact I’m thinking about making a day of it, since Stark has 3 back to back. I for one plan on standing in the front: I’m a big dude, I’ll muscle my way up there.
inkadu
@Wile E. Quixote:
I have been to pro-immigrant rallies in Connecticut where the nuts on the sideline became belligerent when challenged, questioned, or photographed. I have no doubt things would come to blows if they were persistently challenged.
The people running the show may be personal cowards, as might be some of the “supporters” taking a paid vacation from their lobbying jobs to Greyhound around the country; but the troops with their America-flag t-shirts are scared, stupid, angry, and righteous. They will fight back.
This isn’t an after-school special.
someguy
Duh Church Wench. There are those on the right who commit violence, and those who encourage it openly or tacitly by not taking steps to stop or prevent it.
There doesn’t seem to be anybody else living in that neighborhood these days.
Brick Oven Bill
Trick is to get Democratic operatives there to pretend to be teabaggers and really raise the volume of the teabaggers.
Xenos
It is not too hard to call the rent-a-goons’ bluff here, as they are mostly pudgy middle aged men. If these are supposed to be brownshirts, they are doing it wrong.
Just encourage a lot of young people to show up at these town halls. Have them laugh at there elders. Or have them walk threateningly up to the ratfuckers and then suddenly drop to the floor like they have been punched by them, acting like Italian soccer players.
Mock mock mock, ridicule, ridicule, ridicule. Make street theater about it. Make the ridicule the main media story.
inkadu
@Texas Dem: Beautiful.
For best results, we should sing the first verse in Spanish, and the second verse as a rap.
Library of Internationale recordings:
http://www.hymn.ru/internationale/index-en.html
Couldn’t find Hunt for Red October either. I should probably just watch the whole movie.
Fulcanelli
This chaos will continue and even escalate until certain influential people in the media, big business and the republican party wake up to a light in their face mounted on the barrel of an automatic weapon held by a black ops spook and they are told in no uncertain terms to fucking dial it back and STFU. Or else.
Or… people start disappearing.
Now THAT is how realignments happen, bitches.
This is a textbook disinformation program. All of it.
The prime instigators of all of this mass stupidity, the ones with the money, are too insulated from the reality on the ground. It won’t happen before they know real fear up close and personal. They fire up the “useful idiots” and sit back, watch and laugh.
There’s too much money at stake. It is going to take people getting hurt on one side or the other, I’m afraid. These low-bandwidth sheep voters and their instigators are too heavily invested in this shit to bail on this madness before the final bell.
Laugh or call me crazy if you want, but how long does anybody think the Bush Administration and the power structure on the right would have put up with this level of left-wing shit? About 10 minutes.
kay
@Church Lady:
This is just dishonest. Birthers don’t share the same level as truthers, because birthers are serving a useful role within the Republican party, and truthers never did, within the Democratic Party.
50% of Virginians polled now believe Obama is not a US citizen. That goes to the legitimacy of his Presidency, and his policy, and I think the leadership of the GOP know it. It’s politically advantageous to them to wink and nod and pat these people on the head, and that’s what they’re doing.
Karl Rove responded to the latest birther smear today.
“The birth certificate is probably a forgery”.
Of course it’s a forgery, Karl, because if it isn’t, Obama wasn’t born in the US, and Republicans keep insisting they believe he is. So why is the slippery Karl Rove using “probably”
JK
OT
A poster showing President Barack Obama as Heath Ledger’s “Joker” character from “The Dark Knight” is creating a stir on the streets of Los Angeles where the image began appearing over the weekend.
The Obama-Joker poster shows President Obama with white face paint, dark eye shadow and smudged red lipstick and also has the word “socialism” printed in bold, dark letters under the image of his face.
h/t Obama ‘Joker’ Poster Causing a Stir in L.A.
http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-obama-posters,0,940643.story
inkadu
Hey! I actually had a brilliant idea!
We should all take those pictures of these people, yes, but the NEXT step is to find the dirtbags who are showing up at ALL these town halls.
You want a story? Find one person (probably a lobbyist) who appears at 3 different town halls in 3 different states and try to get him on camera to ask questions. That’s a great story, and it effectively discredits the entire disruptive movement (since creating a public disturbance while white isn’t enough).
To make this easier, someone could volunteer to mole on the bus trips…
Our own COINTELPRO is beginning. {rubs velvet underwear gleefully}
Mike in NC
Yeah, right. Eat shit as ususal BOB. Oil shale. also!
I know so many of these shitbirds who dodged the draft etcetera and yet they’re the Real Americans out there, y’all!
Nellcote
@JK:
>In case anyone missed Keith Olbermann tonight, he named Brian Stelter one of his Worst Persons in the World. Stelter wrote the NY Times article about a ceasefire between MSNBC and Fox News.
And for good measure KO named BillO and Rupert as the other WPItW!
Plus awesome special comment about the whores in congress taking money from healthcare corps.
DougJ
Just out of curiosity, what is your line of demarcation between violence born of politics and violence born of mental illness or some other set of beliefs or reasons? How do you assign the blame?
I don’t know. And I’m not saying that some demonic Republican figure is actively trying to rile someone up into violence. What I’m saying is that some of the rhetoric from the right is playing with fire and that I’m afraid it may end with some mentally ill person committing violence. I hope that explains my concern, which is genuine, here.
Church Lady
@Kay,
I’d love to have a link to that Virginia 50% figure you give. Given that Obama won 52.7% of the vote in Virginia, I find that somewhat difficult to swallow.
General Winfield Stuck
@Church Lady:
We see these kind of questions every day sprawled out across the Fox News Channel>
Obama a sockalist?
Obama an American?
Obama likes terrorists?
DougJ hoping for violence?
It’s a chickenshitter’s inquiry.
Comrade Kevin
Church Lady is concerned, very concerned, with DougJ’s posts. As a friend, of course.
KCinDC
“Glenn Beck begs his crazy follower not to kill anyone”.
KCinDC
Er, “followers”, that is.
Xenos
@DougJ: Dick Armey and his crew of ratfuckers is behind the disruption of the town meetings. So the question should be, how far is he willing to go to satisfy his clients and accumulate wealth? I think he would go pretty far, well into the range of blackmail, threats, and extortion.
Maybe he is an appropriate pressure point for some non-violent, perfectly legal moral suasion. Just because it has to be legal does not mean he has to enjoy it.
Comrade Kevin
@Church Lady: That is a distinction without a difference.
Nellcote
@DougJ:
>some of the rhetoric from the right is playing with fire
that and white supremisists(sp) infiltrating the teabaggers, upping the potential for violence and seeing it as a way to start the race war they’ve been yearning for all these years. Yes, I’m that worried.
KCinDC
Church Lady, I think Kay must have meant Virginia Republicans, not Virginians in general. The level of craziness is rising.
Fulcanelli
@DougJ:
I am saying that DougJ.
I’m old enough to remember JFK, RFK and MLK being killed. These people were Gods in their day to millions of people in this country.
It worked before, and it will work again under the right circumstances and these vile fuckers know it. We are now watching the circumstances coalesce more and more every day, and it’s accelerating due to our dire economic conditions.
kay
And then there’s the numbers. Death threats to the President are up 400% since Bush,
Either there’s been an unprecedented increase in mental illness across the board, or conservatives act out more frequently than liberals do.
Because I don’t think liberals are threatening Obama.
Remember, too, Obama didn’t start a war or stand around and watch while a US city disappeared.
400%, based on opposition to reforming health care, a wonkish issue if there ever was one. That’s just crazy.
Xenos
I still think Fela Kuti’s “Coffin for Head of State” points to the right approach to shaming the insurance execs and their lobbyists. Coffins at corporate HQ, coffins at their gated homes, coffins at K street, coffins at their kids’ schools, coffins everywhere. Used medical equipment piled up at their call centers, piles of shoes at their country clubs, quilts for those who died from industry negligence brought to a town common near you.
No need to actually deliver dead bodies in the coffins, a la Fela, but I would be tempted to put some animal carrion in them… let the white collar thugs smell the results of their sins.
This is moral warfare.
inkadu
@Church Lady: […] what is your line of demarcation between violence born of politics and violence born of mental illness […]?
It’s the same line the demarcates schizophrenia from religion.
dougie
I don’t get why their crazies are given any more credence than our DFHs. This coordinated teabag uprising is little more than the right’s code pink: really embarassing and not taken seriously by anyone not wearing pink. Or at least, that should be the analog, but instead the media takes them seriously and the GOP milks it for all the mileage FOX can deliver them. If only they were as dense as code pink, so at least they’d still be draping tea bags over their heads like last time.
Andy K
@Tom:
I’m going with Oily Taint(s).
Church Lady
@DougJ,
I don’t disagree that some of the rhetoric is over the top. Unfortunately, that always seems to be the situation no matter which party is in the White House. During the Clinton years, I was appalled by some of the crazy things people said about Bill and Hillary. It was plain crazy. But, on the other hand, a lot of the things said by the left (and, yes, I’m referring to the FAR left, the same way you are talking about the FAR right) during the Bush years was also crazy.
My belief is that nothing is solved by either of the far ends of the political spectrum and while there are true differences between the center left and the center right, they are not so great as to be insurmountable. Right now, health care is the tussle of the day. Next month, or next year, it will be something else. What doesn’t help anyone is when either side digs in and says that unless I get everything that I want I don’t want it. Sometimes, changing things in increments is the way to go.
While many are clamoring for not only health care reform, but a public option as well, my husband and I are on the fence about it. On one hand, since we pay the premiums for all employees, it would be nice to get that very expensive monkey off of our back. Even paying something like the proposed 8% of payroll penalty in order to dump everyone into a government plan would be less than what we pay out now. On the other hand, both he and I, and our employees, really like the coverage we have now and would not like to see it change in any appreciable manner.
One employee’s husband needs a lung transplant and our provider has approved it. He’s just waiting for a donor. Will changes in the law possibly threaten this approval? We don’t know because we don’t know what is in any of the proposed plans and don’t know how we might be affected or how our employees, with their myriad of health problems, might be affected.
Until the House can reconcile the three plans floating around there and the Senate finally comes out with something, we have absolutely no idea what changes there will be and how they will affect our present coverage. Only when some type of plan is actually unveiled to the public will I be able to decide if I am in favor of the changes.
Andy K
@kay:
Riiiiiiiight, it’s about *cough*Obama’s a black man*cough* reforming healthcare *cough*socialist, terrorist, dirty fuckin’ hippie who’s gonna raise my taxes and he’s black*cough*.
kay
@KCinDC:
I did mean that, I’m sorry. Think about that. Half of Virginia Republicans believe that Obama is actually not a US citizen.
What struck me about the 2000 election was not the Brooks Brothers riots, or the completely baseless and partisan opinion by the SCOTUS, but how decent Americans, and particularly Democrats, were.
We were pissed, Democrats, we thought we got robbed, but the SCOTUS is the final word, and we BUY that, in some deep way. I may be the only Democrat on the face of the earth who admires Al Gore for showing that the rules matter. When you LOSE the court case, you ACCEPT. Without that, we’re a mob who can’t be governed.
Compare Democrat’s reaction to an incredibly close and heart-breaking election to Republican’s reaction to Obama’s election. Their behavior is fucking appalling, as citizens, and deeply and completely undemocratic. They not only refuse to accept the result, they refuse to accept that he is a citizen.
DougJ
But, on the other hand, a lot of the things said by the left (and, yes, I’m referring to the FAR left, the same way you are talking about the FAR right) during the Bush years was also crazy.
Did anybody on the “FAR left” blow up any buildings under Bush? Did any set bombs of at the Olympics?
Andy K
“Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
I’ll try it differently.
@kay:
It’s about a black man who is the President and a Democrat, and a black man, and a socialist, and a black man, and he’s gonna raise my taxes, and he’s a black man, he pals around wuith teh terrist, and he’s a black man. And health care reform. Black man. Also.
Andy K
What’s got me in the mod queue?
Jody
Church Lady: the “far left” you keep jabbering about had no pull within the democratic party. None. Certainly not approaching the levels of authority the nutjobs occupy in the GOP.
Further, I’ve lost three friends to date because they could not afford the health care they required. The parents of one of them actually sold his childhood home in their attempt to get him the care he needed. Didn’t work, and the money they got didn’t cover all the bills.
Now please, with all due respect, blow it out your holier-than-thou, concern-trolling ass.
General Winfield Stuck
@Church Lady:
Of course it’s all about you and your employees. Funny you didn’t mention the 47 million who don’t have and can’t get any health care.
Christ you are dense. The right wants things just the way they are for one reason and one reason only. Their benefactors are making a killing in profit at the expense of citizens dying who can’t get help.
Anne Laurie
Oh, I would love to see Howard Dean and/or Joe Biden do this! Be nice to think that Obama might, but of course the Media Village Idiot takeaway in that case would be “Supreme Leader unleashes spy battalions on humble concerned
astroturferscitizen patriots! ! ! “As for the Church Lady, who is (once again) Concerned… everybody remember the long FBI/NSA/DHS tradition of ‘infiltrating’ dangerous anti-American organizations like Code Pink and the Quakers? Congratulations, Mr. Cole — BJ has its very own Norbert the Narc! Sure, intelligent commenters will point out that the Church Lady’s Lily-Tomlinesque pseudo-gentility is not exactly a well-conceived imitation of the typical BJ poster, but then, our homegrown Brownshirts have never shown much talent for the theatrics they love so much!
Church Lady
@DougJ: No, not to my knowledge. From what I can remember, the far left usually just goes for property damage, i.e. Animal Rights groups like ALF and environmental groups like ELF. Although the Unibomber could probably be claimed by the left. I’m not sure where to put the muslim convert that killed the soldier at the military recruiting center in Little Rock.
pattonbt
To compare the fare left and right in relation to violence and violence prone rhetoric is just plain obtuse. There is no comparison. The only “far left” group that I can think has ever acted out violently since Vietnam is ELF. And like the “far left” agitators in Vietnam they take particular care to hit infrastructure only and avoid human casualities. That doesnt make it right, but the distinction is stark.
Sure we should not jump to conclusions, but that doesnt mean we shouldnt recognize truths and prepare against them.
The R party is playing with fire no matter how you want to slice it, and their fringe is more willing to go Rambo with little or no prodding. We shouldnt let the R’s get away with throwing the match in the gasoline.
Nellcote
Where’s Michael Schiavo? I think he would be the perfect person to talk about the need for living wills/medical directives to counter the gop “Kill Granny” meme.
Church Lady
@General Stuck: Yes, as self-centered as you might consider it, I have a higher duty to my family and my employees than I do to either you or your friends. I know my family prefers it that way and, would I have to guess, I’m pretty sure our employees probably do too.
How many people do you currently provide comprehensive health insurance for?
Church Lady
@Anne Laurie: Are you shitting me? If you’re serious, you have taken paranoia to new heights and should probably seek help.
General Winfield Stuck
@Church Lady:
Thanks for being honest about being a self serving hack. And a good republican. The air is cleared.
freelancer
“The Ides of August”
Jesus Christ, just it his title, Sully frames it as Caesarbama crossing the Rubicon and the plebes aren’t having it. I’m no ‘bot, but my heavens, how much more asininity before I stop reading him?
Church Lady
Winfied, are you married? Do you have children? Do you have anyone that relies on you for food, shelter, clothing or health insurance? If yes, would you put others above those that you are responsible to for providing these things? Somehow, I doubt it.
It’s easy to be sanctimonious when you have no responsibilities. It’s also easy to believe in utopia. For those of us that not only reside in the real world, but have real world responsibilities, the answers to some problems are a little more murky and we like to have full information prior to taking a position.
inkadu
Listen, Church Lady, obviously part of your brain is not functioning. You are neurologically incapable of weighting anything on one side of the scale or the other. As long as there is something on the left, and something on the right everything will always be in near equal balance. On the one hand your business is about to go under from health insurance, on the other hand the public option is a little undefined right now. You can count the number of arguments for and against, but you can’t evaluate any of them, and you can’t decide which are more important.
Oh how oh HOW will you make up your mind?
You are a painter trapped in a mirror fun house without an easel, a colorblind monkey trying to make change with only dimes and pennies, your parallel dimension evil twin does not have a goatee… you are trapped in the folds of your cerebellum where neurons should be sparking but only mute silence reigns.
We can not exorcise the bland grey ghosts that haunt your mind, nor help you balance 7 rotating scalepans. The colorless kaleidoscopes that spin and fracture all the light that enters your mind will always dazzle you into asking endless question, seeking answers to endless problems with endless possible solutions.
Begone, foul wretch! May the fires of hell at last burn and shatter the sternum of your always bi-winged soul!
The power of christ compels you. Also.
General Winfield Stuck
@Church Lady:
Nice strawman CL. I didn’t say you shouldn’t be concerned with your immediate responsibilities, what I said was you didn’t even mention a concern for so many Americans without any HC. A telling fact, IMO.
And to accuse DougJ of hoping for violence from anything he has stated is beyond the pale, even for your usual debauchery. Then you try to wriggle out of it with a load of asinine doubletalk.
You should have taken his advice and just left this thread, or even the blog altogether. Your horseshit won’t fly here and it will always be thrown right back in your face.
tammanycall
Church Lady is a teabag commenter, intentionally impeding real discussion. Either ignore him or ban his IP address. (And yes, I think it’s a “him”.)
pattonbt
@Church Lady:
Yes to most of your questions (you posed to Winfied). But that doesnt mean that I still cant do both – take care of my own and contribute to the greater good. Not hard really. Its just means you dont have to be a 100% selfish prick. Being a 75% selfish prick (which is what I am) can get both jobs done pretty easily.
The deal is that those of use that arent completely self absorbed dont give up the good for the sake of the perfect. Thats the selfish persons way out of contributing. “Its not perfect so I wont help”.
You use that ‘more information’ crutch as a way to justify doing nothing. This way you think you can hold your head high on a principle of intellectualism when all it is is a pathetic dodge.
ninerdave
@DougJ:
Um Doug, the ALF, has done plenty of damage and I’d hardly consider them right wing. While, I’m not aware of any deaths because of the ALF, let’s not pretend that they left doesn’t have their share of extreme whackos (read: domestic terrorists)
Church Lady
pattonbt, perhaps you can tell me exactly what is in the competing bills and what changes will be in store for those with employer provided health insurance, those that are self-insured, those that cannot afford to pay the full premiums for insurance, those that can afford it but choose not to have it and those that are small employers that either cannot afford to provide their employees with insurance at all or do provide insurance, but only something as basic as catastrophic coverage. Maybe you can tell me how much exactly how it will all be paid for and exactly how much it’s going to cost. How many of the uninsured will be able to obtain affordable coverage in the first year after something passes? How about five years? How about ten? How many will be able to be moved over to the Medicaid roles? How much over the poverty line will they be allowed to earn and still be considered eligible for Medicaid coverage? If a government option is passed, what will the provisions be? Will it operate like Medicare? Will it operate like Medicaid? How much will premiums cost? Will the cost for someone with health issues, either past or current, be the same as for someone that is healthy? Will there be a mandate to obtain coverage of some sort? If so, what will the penalty be for ignoring the mandate?
I find it difficult to see how anyone says they support what Congress is doing when no one knows exactly what Congress is doing. The Senate hasn’t produced anything yet and even when they do, it will have to be reconciled with whatever comes out of the House.
The lack of answers to questions is why I am unable to commit to the “reform” of health insurance. When answers are available, I’ll make up my mind.
Allan
Before you leave the house in the morning, Church Lady, do you need to know the make, model, license plate number, and home address and driving record of every other car that will be on the road at the same time?
Or do you get in your car, start the engine, and head toward your destination in spite of all the uncertainties that lie ahead?
Church Lady
Allan, the make, model, license plate number and home address of other drivers won’t keep me from arriving at my destination. Their driving record could be a factor, but I’d have to say a pretty small one. However, when I get in my car, I know exactly WHERE I’m going. That’s all I ask before I get off the fence. When I know where they are going with health care, I’ll decide if I think the trip is worth it.
Allan
I can’t possibly support health care reform until I know exactly how much I’ll pay out of pocket for a perforated colon in 2019 in case I slip while carrying a pet gerbil and accidentally sit on it, thereby unintentionally inserting it into my rectum at my 62nd birthday party.
I’m also going to need to know if the amount varies if it’s a lightbulb or a cucumber I’m carrying when I accidentally slip and fall.
Without that crucial information, how can anyone expect me to take a position?
General Winfield Stuck
@Allan:
It’s classic concern troll modus operandi.
pattonbt
@Church Lady:
I can appreciate wanting to know more details. But the level of detail you are seeking will not be in any bill that will be put forward. I think the best you will see is frameworks. Additionally, whatever is put forward will be good and bad (who knows what the unintended consequences will be, but they will be). So I ask will you be willing to accept the imperfect if it means more expense for you but greater coverage for others?
I’ll be honest, I dont think what comes out now will be anywhere near what I think should be the case. Nor do I think any country between now and the end of history will come up to something that is “ideal”. Healthcare will always be rationed, it will always be limited, it will always be imperfect and its costs will always been shared.
But, we’ve got to get through this first step. I think we are ten to twenty years away from satisfying healthcare reform, but I’ll take whatever the first step that gets out now. It will change the landscape for future improvements. But the first crack has to be put in the dyke.
Dont be afraid of the imperfect, because if you are you will just find a reason to write off whatever comes out.
Church Lady
@pattonbt:
At this point, I’d be happy with any details. That’s the problem – there are none. How can anyone support something that they have almost no information on? At the same time, how can they be against it?
I’m not waiting for the perfect, I just want to have some idea how anything passed will affect me, my family and the people we employ.
Would I be willing to support something that helped others, but cost me a little more? Yes. I already do on an almost daily basis. However, there is a limit to which I am willing to happily pay. Where that limit is will depend on factors that can’t be ascertained until I know what they are.
Wile E. Quixote
@inkadu
No fucking shit. It’s not an after-school special, but unfortunately progressives are a bunch of fucking pussies who insist upon treating it as if it were and as if at some point in the future we’ll all be able to sit down with the Republicans and have milk and cookies and sing a song about the valuable lessons we learned today. If you’re not willing to stand up to these people then you’re going to end up on your knees kissing their asses. There’s not a third way.
Allan
So if I’m understanding you, Church Lady, you’re neither for nor against health care reform. You need more information.
So, it follows that you support congresspersons having town halls wherein constituents can come and ask questions and learn more information.
And you agree that anyone who attempts to disrupt such town halls with bullying tactics to disrupt the conversation is interfering with the education of constituents and is hostile to the principles of democracy. And such people are rightly condemned by all patriotic Americans.
I’m glad there’s so much upon which we can agree.
So what exactly is your fucking problem with DougJ again?
Wile E. Quixote
@ninerdave
What a completely stupid false equivalence. Political violence in America is and has been over-whelmingly right wing. Yeah, you can point out the whackos at the ALF, or the various and sundry nutjobs who were running around during the 60’s and early 70’s or go farther back to the Wall Street bombing of 1919. But the destruction wrought by left wing groups and their body count pales in comparison to that of the right.
How many people did the Klan kill back in the 1960s? How many died in Oklahoma City 14 years ago? There were about 5,000 lynchings in the United States during the 100 years after the civil war, none of which were done by the left. How many abortion clinics have been burned down or blown up?
Your bullshit false equivalence might win you kudos from David Broder or the other villagers, but that doesn’t make it any less stupid or dishonest.
ninerdave
@Church Lady:
Now I haven’t read most of this thread. However your quote above is, although common, without a doubt the stupidest laziest, most ignorant, sad excuse for an “argument” I’ve seen. In fact, if I had my way, I’d strip your right to vote.
Yes, there are a handful of bills that have yet to be reconciled. The fact that it is undefined is EXACTLY the time when you should be pimping for what you think health care reform should look like. You should be calling, emailing, showing up to town halls with your representative.
You have questions? There are no answers yet. Yet August is the time to influence the form that health care reform will take. The time is now to influence the outcome of your questions.
Now I don’t know your politics, as I said above I haven’t read the entire thread, but if as your comment indicates, you are waiting for our lawmakers to craft a bill, I promise you, whether you are conservative or liberal, pro or con a social safety net, without your input it will suck and we’ll end up lining the pockets of some fat ass with our tax dollars (see Medicare part D). At the end of the day he will get richer, and you will sit on the sidelines squabbling about who fucked it all up.
If you don’t have an opinion, then shut the fuck up, read and get one.
Then pimp it.
ninerdave
@Wile E. Quixote:
Wow, ok.
You destroyed your whole thesis there.
So body count is the entire measure of a group’s facility to terrorize? The Anti-Choice idiots have killed less than the lefties and they seem perfectly capable of terrorizing.
Oh fuck off, spare me. There are violent extremists on both sides. Body count is not the only measurement of domestic terrorism.
Wile E. Quixote
Ninerdave, you are as every bit as much a stupidly dishonest piece of garbage as anyone working in the MSM. Indeed if the Atlantic wasn’t already chock full of intellectually dishonest and vapid morons they’d probably offer you and Church Lady jobs a couple of blogging gigs where you could engage in contrarian concern trolling, demolishing straw-men and setting up false equivalencies. Or perhaps you could fill in for Jonah Goldberg at NRO and the LA Times when he’s on vacation.
Now, anyone who knows anything about American history, which you obviously don’t, knows that there are extremists both left and right in America and that extremists from both groups have killed destroyed and terrorized over the years, but that the violence of right-wing groups and the terror that they have inflicted in American history far outstrips anything the left-wing did.
Nice attempt at cherry-picking, it’s positively Jonah Goldbergian. Yes, if you take *one* subset of right-wing terror groups you can say that that subset has a lower body count than that of the entire history of every left-wing terror group in American history. But if you’re not being an intellectually dishonest piece of garbage and if you look at history and compare the body count and destruction and terror wrought by all right-wing terror groups in the history of the United States to that of left-wing terror groups the right-wing wins.
No, body count isn’t the only measurement of domestic terrorism. We could also throw in property damage and violence short of death. If we include these metrics the right-wing wins again. Or if we look at the number of Americans who lived in terror of being the victims of right-wing violence and compare them with the number of Americans who lived in terror of being the victims of left-wing violence we’d find that the right-wing wins again.
Come on ninerdave, when was the last time that an unhinged leftist killed someone? Well if you count the Unabomber it was 15 years ago. When was the last time an unhinged right-winger killed someone? Oh, about two months ago. When was the last time that an unhinged right-winger killed someone before that? Oh, about three months before that. Where are the unhinged Unitarians who are reading Noam Chomsky, getting pissed off and shooting up Baptist churches? Oh wait, they don’t exist, but unhinged right-wingers who read Bernie Goldberg and shoot up Unitarian churches are out there. Where were the unhinged leftists fomenting mutiny in the military because they believed that George W. Bush wasn’t the legitimate president because of Bush v. Gore? Oh wait, they don’t exist, but we have plenty of right-wingers out there advocating what amounts to a military coup.
Again, you’re just an intellectually dishonest sack of garbage playing the intellectually dishonest “balance” game where in which we’re all supposed to pretend that all sides of an argument are equally valid or that both ends of the political spectrum are equally violent. Spare us your Jonah Goldberg wannabe nonsense and fuck off over to RedState already, they’ll love you over there.
Shell Goddamnit
@The Moar You Know:
I don’t think they have to close down the town halls, if legislators really think they’re valuable they can run the things to minimize the crazed-right disruption. Step one would be to close it to anyone but constituents; show yr ID with in-district address or get the fuck out. Step two is, as someone somewhere suggested, get a facilitator in, and run the thing for reals: wait your turn, make a point, stay civil & don’t interrupt, or get the fuck out.
The mean girl in me adds, and tase the shit out of anyone who resists being made to get the fuck out, but those things are dangerous; so no, put them out in the normal way: with an armlock.
DougJ
Um Doug, the ALF, has done plenty of damage and I’d hardly consider them right wing.
Are you referring to the tv show? Because if so, you know that alien was a major wingnut, right?
pika
Ack. Got here late and afraid no one will see this–this a.m. someone posted this very useful tale of foiling the Teabaggers at a townhall meeting:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/4/761608/-Tea-Baggers-FAIL-to-disrupt-Health-Care-meeting,-lessons-shared.
Malron
One of the things I noticed while watching this mess on Rachel Maddow is the age of most of the rabble rousers. They look like most of them qualify for Medicare. I’ve also come to the grim realization that the GOP has been promoting a lynch mob mentality ever since Sarah Palin’s first campaign rally. Its growing more hateful and violence is surely to follow.
wall-e
Teabagging in Green Bay, WI last night:
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20090804/GPG0101/908040543/1978
Thomas Allen
I think all Dem reps should open their townhalls with a reading of an excerpt from the “shut them down” memo, and apologize to the constituents who are there for an actual exchange of ideas that there may be members of the audience whose only interest is in disruption.
Thomas Allen
I wrote my comment before reading the GOS diary posted by pika. Sounds like it worked fairly well. You may want to emphasize that the tea bagger disruptions are not a grassroots upwelling –they are corporate-backed attempts to subvert constituents’ access to their elected representatives.
bjacques
The main objective is to shut down the hecklers and *proceed with the meeting.* If I learned anything from women’s clinic defense so many years ago, it’s that the protesters’ goal was not just to get pregnant women to reconsider abortions, but to make it impossible for the clinic to do business that day, whether it’s for abortions or just checkups. Saturday was a big day because that’s when most people are off work, and it was usually by appointment. There was no walk-in trade to make up for cancelled appointments.
A screaming match between the two sides and a scrum in front of the gate with a heavy police presence was a WIN for the protesters.
It’s why Planned Parenthood could make the (ultimately unsuccessful) case that RICO could be used against groups like Operation Rescue.
RememberNovember
Way to go, wingnut chickenshit tea-baggers. Massa was an Iraq vet. If anyone knows tea bagging, he does and I hope he counteracts their fire with heavier artillery. You kids are about to get served.
inkadu
@DougJ: HA!