Who is really behind the rabid rabble rousers at the town hall meetings?

[greg cryns]

In my opinion, it is NOT anyone at the helm of the Republican party. I'm not sure they have the wits nor the money firepower to bring this brilliant BS tactic.

This is not a "grass roots" rebellion. Don't think that for a second.

This has "insurance company power" written all over it. They know that the media is the key to any anti-medicalcare victory for THEM.

And so many well meaning people are kneeling to kiss the rings of the insurance executives.

I workd for a couple of insurance companies in the past. I can tell you first hand that the executives think of the consumers as stupid slaves. Insurance companies are first and formost, businesses. You are just a number to them.

I have also had the misfortune of trying to deal with Congressmen. "Is there anything I can say that would change your mind?" If they say NO, leave immediately. That's also the way I feel about talking politics. If you have an agenda, it is highly likely that nothing that will change your mind.

Wanna bet?

Old insurance agent joke:

How do you know when a State Farm agent is having an affair?

He lost a lot of weight.

greg

[Dani Cutler]

Rachel Maddow reports on the "town halls gone wild" that industry backed astroturf groups like Americans for Prosperity are involved in disrupting.

Maddow: This is orchestrated outrage. There is a script for this stuff that was written before these events happened and that appears to be instructions to people to shut down these efforts at civic discourse. The web site Think Progress obtained a leaked memo from a group that calls itself Right Principles. The three page memo details how protesters should behave at town hall events.

Under the heading "Inside the Hall" it says:

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. If he blames Bush for something or offers other excuses -- call him on it, yell back and have someone else tallow-up with a shout-out. The goal is to rattle him.

When the formal Q&A session begins get all your hands up and keep them up.... The balance of the group should applaud when the question is asked, further putting the Rep on the defensive.

Who's giving these rent-a-mob instructions like this? Well that memo was written by a man named Bob MacGuffie. Bob McGuffie is associated with an organization called Freedom Works. Freedom Works is a Washington DC lobbying firm, run by former Republican Majority leader Dick Armey.

Corporate lobbyists are organizing far right hooligan tactics to disrupt civic meetings about health care reform. This is the organized use of intimidation as a political tool in the United States, and I don't mean intimidation euphemistically. I mean literal intimidation.

New York Congressman Tim Bishop who we showed you earlier. He ended up having to be escorted to his car by five police officers for his own safety after his town hall event was over.

And this type of harassment is not just reserved for elected officials.

[.....]

This type of tactic, this type of intimidation is a deliberate choice. And it appears to be stoked and organized by corporate lobbyists. And it is not something that is happening in a vacuum.

[.....]

This is well paid lobbyists doing this as a strategy. It's the same thing with the deathers. These scare your grandmother myths that the whole point of health care reform is secretly to kill old people. This patently, patently false rumor about health care reform as we talked about earlier on this show was started by a woman who sits on the board of directors of one of the nations biggest medical device companies.

Everybody says well politics ain't beanbags. Right. Obviously this is not beanbags. But this isn't hardball either, no offense to Chris. This just isn't even politics. This is orchestrated, mob mentality intimidation. This is called hooliganism.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-gop-thugi...

[greg cryns]

Gotta love the Rachel gal! :)

[greg cryns]

I think this phoney baloney staged rebellion may actually backfire in the Republicans/insurance faces.

Sane people see through the smoke. I sense anger in even the Republican senators about them.

How can anyone think these people have an IQ above 80?

I don't even need to preach anymore to get people to vote away from the Republican Party. They are imploding and destroying themselves.

Wanna get teabagged?

greg

[Trent Rock]

The web site Think Progress obtained a leaked memo from a group that calls itself Right Principles. The three page memo details how protesters should behave at town hall events.

ONE leaked memo surfaces and all of a sudden ALL the town hall disrupters are back by the evil corporations?
I need to see more evidence then that......

[Fran Hollar]

Community organizers. Got to love them!

[Dani Cutler]

But they're not, they are fake. They do not represent the community at all. They represent corporate interests, because that is who is funding and organizing them.

I have to say though, I'm not a fan of "astroturf" being used to counter "grassroots". It's rather lame, like "teabaggers." It's not witty or funny.

Just call them what they are- liars and fakes, and keep proving as such.

http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/when-liberals-protest-its-faci...

[greg cryns]

I heard the Dems will be organizing to put bunches of their own at the meetings. Would be kinda fun to see the two sides mix it up. You know, to see who is tougher.

[Davetopper]

It gets worse Greg.

Anti-Health Care Reform Protester Encourages Physical Violence, Use...

It worries me where all this will end, and how crazy some extremists really are.

[greg cryns]

Here is my take:

I think the people "in the know" realize that some agreement will be reached. It probably won't be what is on the table today, but there will be some government take over.

So, the right wing, with insurance money, is in attack mode hopting they can snuff (kill) it out.

Their antics, however, actually turn the popular tide against them. And the Dem Senators know they were voted in on this issue (among others). They don't want to lose their fat butt jobs either.

Something will pass, IMO.

[Davetopper]

Well it was antics that nearly evenhandedly gave the presidency to Obama. These antics that once again the right wing have gotten into will probably give us national health care.

It's funny but anything they oppose I have to think is a worthwhile venture. They are so against given something to the many but never oppose anything that is for the few.

Seems strange to me.

[greg cryns]

Remember, the rabid right is just a small portion of American voters. What, 8%, less?

Like Christians, most Americans are hard working, honest people. Just because they voted Republican does not make them any less than anyone else. but if you voted Republican and screamed "nigger" and "kill him" and "no healthcare reform" then you are something else. I'm not saying you have to be for Obama's plan. Just that it is so obvious that some sort of reform is needed and I think most Republicans will admit that.

But their damn Senators will vote partisan no matter what. That is sick.

greg

[Bruce Carter]

Right-Wing Turncoat Gives the Inside Scoop on Why Conservatives Are
Rampaging Town Halls
 By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet
Posted on August 7, 2009, Printed on August 9, 2009

 http://www.alternet.org/story/141833/

Editor's note: Stephen C. Webster writes for Raw Story the latest
example of extreme right-wing demagoguery in Tampa on Thursday, this
time inspired by right-wing Fox News's Glenn Beck: "In a stunning
display of anger, Florida Republicans and fans of Fox editorialist
Glenn Beck turned a Tampa healthcare forum into a “near riot,” one
reporter said, as they attempted to enter the meeting hall and drown
out a group of community organizers and a member of congress There were
at least two reports of violence at the forum. “The meeting which was
scheduled to begin at 6:00 at the Children’s Board of Hillsborough
County drew hundreds of people who quickly began to overwhelm staff and
event organizers at the front entrance,” reported Tampa news station 10
Connects. ...
“Thursday’s forum/near riot was sponsored by state Rep. Betty Reed,
D-Tampa, and the Service Employees International Union, who apparently
had hoped to hold something of a pep rally for President Obama’s health
care reform proposal,” noted St. Petersburg Times reporter Adam Smith.
He continued: “Instead, hundreds of vocal critics turned out, many of
them saying they had been spurred on through the Tampa 912 activist
group promoted by conservative radio and television personality Glenn
Beck. Others had received e-mails from the Hillsborough Republican
party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered
talking points to challenge supporters.” Such “mobs” have been
denounced in recent days by Democratic lawmakers, while journalists
like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow have revealed the corporate interests and
Republican operatives that bankroll and organize these town hall
disruptions.

**************************************************************

"...There is no daylight between the Republican Party, the health-care
insurance industry, far right leaders like Dick Armey, the legion of
insurance lobbyists, and now, a small army of  thugs. All we're missing
is actual uniforms, otherwise we now have a full blown American version
of the Nazi Brown Shirts..."







Right-Wing Turncoat Gives the Inside Scoop on Why Conservatives Are
Rampaging Town Halls
by Francis Schaeffer

The Republican Old Guard are in the fix an atheist would be in if Jesus
showed up and raised his mother from the dead: Their world view has
just been shattered. Obama's election has driven them over the edge.
Consider Former Congressman Dick Armey. Several far right foundations
and the multitrillion dollar health-insurance industry have teamed up
with him  to organize the far right foot soldiers of the Republican
Party to  intimidate people speaking on behalf of health-care reform.  
They are using my old shock troops -- given many of these folks were
first energized by the Evangelical pro-life movement that my late
father and I started in the 1970s. What we did to clinics they are now
doing to congressmen and others speaking out for health care reform.
 
 Having failed at the ballot box, having watched their Fox
News-organized "tea parties" fizzle the intimidation tactics which the
Republicans have embraced are being used in a well-financed, top-down
orchestrated fake grass roots campaign by corporate interests to try
and protect  the profits of the insurance business.

Armey's FreedomWorks is  organizing against health care reform. Armey's
lobbying firm represents pharmaceutical companies including
Bristol-Myers Squibb. Armey's lobbying firm also represents the trade
group for the life insurance industry.  FreedomWorks is supporting the
status quo at all costs. (They are also fans of fossil fuels. Armey's
lobbying firm represents Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime
Minister of the UAE, on energy related issues.)
 
 Last year, the Wall Street Journal exposed FreedomWorks for
building "amateur-looking" websites to promote far right interests of
Armey. FreedomWorks represents a top-down, corporate-friendly approach
that's been the norm for conservative organizations for years. How do I
know this is the norm? Because I used to have strategy meetings with
the late Jack Kemp and Dick Army and the rest of the Republican gang
about using their business ties to help finance the pro-life movement
to defeat Democrats. I know this script. I helped write it.
   
 Democratic members of Congress are being harassed by angry,
sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior at local town halls. It's
the tactic we used to follow abortion providers around their
neighborhoods. "Protesters" surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and
forced police officers to have to escort him to his car for safety. We
used to do the same to Dr. Tiller... until someone killed him.
 
  How Can The Right Stoop So Low?
 
 I used to know Dick Armey quite well. One of my sons even worked for
him as an intern. I knew Armey in the context of his being a fan of my
late Evangelical Religious Right leader father Francis Schaeffer. (Back
in the day when I was a right wing "pro-life"  organizer who has long
since quit the Republicans in disgust at their -- our -- descent into
extremism and hate.) Armey was once a decent guy, whatever his
political views. How could he stoop so low as to be organizing what
amounts to America's Brown Shirts today?
 
 I think I know what happened to him, Gingrich and the rest: They can't
compute that their white man-led conservative revolution is dead. They
can't reconcile their idea of themselves with the fact that white men
like them don't run the country any more -- and never will again. To
them the black president is leading a column of the "other" into their
promised land. Gays, immigrants, blacks, progressives, even a female
Hispanic appointed to the Supreme Court... for them this is the
Apocalypse.
 
 The last presidential election (to paraphrase Bart Simpson)  "broke
their brains." What else could explain their embrace of intimidation --
rather than discourse -- over the health care debate and such unsavory
moments of madness as the Republicans accusing Obama and Judge Sonia
Sotomayor of racism, knowing full well that they'd just destroyed their
chances with the Hispanic community forever?  
 
  The "Scorched Earth Policy"
 
 Dick Army and company have been driven mad by their reversal, not just
of political fortunes but of seeing that they've wasted their lives.
They now know they were wrong: about the country, the free market, war
for fun and profit, and what the American people really want. They made
their best case and were rejected by the American people --  and by
history. Bush was their man and he turned out to be a fool. So now all
the the Republican gurus have left is what the defeated Germans of
World War Two had: a scorched earth policy. If they can't win then
everyone must go down. Obama must fail! The country must fail!
The Lobbyist-run Groups "Americans for Prosperity " and "FreedomWorks/
Dick Armey-Orchestrated Memo:
 
 Here is a leaked excerpt from the folks organizing the intimidation
campaign:
 
     - Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: "Spread out in the hall and
try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the
defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to
feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the
audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington."
 
     - Be Disruptive Early And Often: "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."
 
     - Try To "Rattle Him," Not Have An Intelligent Debate: "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."
The Last Republican Tactic: Outright Lies
 
 A barrage of outright lies, wherein the Democrats are being accused of
wanting to launch a massive euthanasia program against the elderly,
free abortions for everyone, and "a government takeover" of health-care
is now being combined with physical intimidation that in several cases
has required police escorts to protect pro health-care reform speakers
surrounded by angry plants sent to disrupt public forums on the
health-care issue. Demonstrators hung Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) in
effigy outside of his office. (Missing from the reporting of these
stories -- with the notable exception of Rachel Maddow -- is the fact
that much of these protests are coordinated by public relations firms
and lobbyists who have a stake in opposing President Obama's reforms.
 
  There is no daylight between the Republican Party, the health-care
insurance industry, far right leaders like Dick Armey, the legion of
insurance lobbyists, and now, a small army of  thugs. All we're missing
is actual uniforms, otherwise we now have a full blown American version
of the Nazi Brown Shirts.
 
 No, I don't believe that these people are about to take over the
country. No, the sky is not falling. But the Republican Party is. It is
now profoundly anti-American.
 
 The health-insurance industry is run by very smart and very greedy
people who have sunk to a new low.  So has the Republican Party's
leadership that will not stand up and denounce the likes of Dick Armey
for helping organize roving bands of thugs trying to strip the rest of
us of the ability to be heard when it comes to the popular will on
reforming health care.
 
  Conclusion: the Fascist Formula
 
 Here's the emerging American version of the fascist's formula: combine
millions of dollars of lobbyists' money with embittered  troublemakers  
who have a small army of not terribly bright white angry people
(collected over decades through pro-life mass mailing networks) at
their beck and call, ever ready to believe any myth or lie circulated
by the semi literate and completely and routinely misinformed right
wing -- Evangelical religious underground. Then put his little mob
together with the insurance companies' big bucks. That's how it
works -- American Brown Shirts at the ready.  
 
 What's the results of the fascist formula for the rest of us? Well,
think how this "method" worked against Dr. Tiller's abortion clinic and
how that story ended. In this case a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
save our economy from going bankrupt because of spiraling health care
costs may be lost, not because of a better argument, but because of
lies backed up by anti-democratic embittered thuggery. The motive?
Revenge on America by the Old White Guys of the far right, and greed by
the insurance industry.  
 
  What Can Be Done?
 
 It's time that this whole shabby (and insane) business be exposed,
vilified in run out of town on a rail by whatever responsible
Republicans -- if any -- that are still in the party and who want to
see the fortunes of their party revived. Republican leaders taking
insurance industry money via lobbying firms and using it to organize
what amounts to roving bands of thugs not only need to be exposed but
thrown out of the public debate forever.  They should become absolute
pariahs.  
 
 It's time to give this garbage a name: insurance industry funded
fascism.
 
 Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up
As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To
Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
 View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/141833/
--





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it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our
music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our
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that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they
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weapons, their notion of inevitability.
...Arundhati Roy