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August 6, 2009 at 5:59 pm #591812
JenVMemberRec’d in email, passing along here
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There’s been a lot of media coverage about organized mobs intimidating lawmakers, disrupting town halls, and silencing real discussion about the need for real health insurance reform.
The truth is, it’s a sham. These “grassroots protests” are being organized and largely paid for by Washington special interests and insurance companies who are desperate to block reform. They’re trying to use lies and fear to break the President and his agenda for change.
Health insurance reform is about our lives, our jobs, and our families — we can’t let distortions and intimidation get in the way. We need to expose these outrageous tactics, and we’re counting on you to help. Can you read these “5 facts about the anti-reform mobs,” then pass them along to your friends and family?
5 facts about the anti-reform mobs
1. These disruptions are being funded and organized by out-of-district special-interest groups and insurance companies who fear that health insurance reform could help Americans, but hurt their bottom line. A group run by the same folks who made the “Swiftboat” ads against John Kerry is compiling a list of congressional events in August to disrupt. An insurance company coalition has stationed employees in 30 states to track where local lawmakers hold town-hall meetings.
2. People are scared because they are being fed frightening lies. These crowds are being riled up by anti-reform lies being spread by industry front groups that invent smears to tarnish the President’s plan and scare voters. But as the President has repeatedly said, health insurance reform will create more health care choices for the American people, not reduce them. If you like your insurance or your doctor, you can keep them, and there is no “government takeover” in any part of any plan supported by the President or Congress.
3. Their actions are getting more extreme. Texas protesters brought signs displaying a tombstone for Rep. Lloyd Doggett and using the “SS” symbol to compare President Obama’s policies to Nazism. Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil was hanged in effigy outside his district office. Rep. Tim Bishop of New York had to be escorted to his car by police after an angry few disrupted his town hall meeting — and more examples like this come in every day. And they have gone beyond just trying to derail the President’s health insurance reform plans, they are trying to “break” the President himself and ruin his Presidency.
4. Their goal is to disrupt and shut down legitimate conversation. Protesters have routinely shouted down representatives trying to engage in constructive dialogue with voters, and done everything they can to intimidate and silence regular people who just want more information. One attack group has even published a manual instructing protesters to “stand up and shout” and try to “rattle” lawmakers to prevent them from talking peacefully with their constituents.
5. Republican leadership is irresponsibly cheering on the thuggish crowds. Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a statement applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to “a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress.”
It’s time to expose this charade, before it gets more dangerous. Please send these facts to everyone you know. You can also post them on your website, blog, or Facebook page.
Now, more than ever, we need to stand strong together and defend the truth.
August 6, 2009 at 6:20 pm #674037
bluebirdMemberDo you happen to watch Rachel Maddow JenV?
Two nights ago, she put up a still photo of the “community protesters”. She circled each face and listed their name. Oddly, all Republican operatives that travel to each town hall meeting.
Last night she went through the the list of “grassroots” sponsors AGAINST health care reform. The Republican establishment put out a memo saying Democrats were being elitists again by going against these middle class average America folks. Funny thing, they are all owned/founded/run by multi-millionaire Republicans.
It’s infuriating that these are their tactics and most people take them at face value. Bunch of effin hypocrites. Half of them own medical clinics or similar enterprises and don’t want to see their profits diminish.
August 6, 2009 at 6:26 pm #674038
bluebirdMemberPS, the part of the bill that pays for living wills should you desire one. Added by a Republican. Now they’re making commercials saying that’s really code for Democrats wanting to kill Granny. Nice.
August 6, 2009 at 10:55 pm #674039
HMC RichParticipantWhether you are a paid political operative or an average citizen, is it not your responsibility to stand up and speak your mind for your point of view?
Those “spontaneous” ACORN protests sure have nice pre-made signs but every single person coming out against “Healthcare For All’ is from a “mob” mentality and part of the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy”
Character assassination is a game many groups employ, private public, left right but I have to admit the left has a head start.
This is the first major opposition to something the left wants and the left has the office of President, the House and Senate. It should be a slam dunk. Senator Obama came out and said it around 2003 that he was for a single payer system but needed a Democratic President and Congress. Viola! But I see the social leftists turning against the fiscally conservative leftists. Maybe those Blue Dogs have a point.
To get large groups of non democrats to turn out at meetings just doesn’t happen that often. Many average citizens from center and the right usually go about their daily tasks and let the elected officials and lobbyists do their jobs and usually watch the “Progressives” march on the news on their tv’s. This is too big to be organized but there are many groups from grassroots to political operatives who are getting involved. Is there something wrong with that. I heard how much the left used community organizers and grass roots movements to get our current president elected. Good and bad on both sides.
Bluebird, I hope you are having a nice day. Rahm Emanuel’s brother Dr. Ezekial Emanual Who is the Presidents Health Policy Advisor in January of 2009 said some chilling things about government sponsored healthcare.
This is about problems when their is an emergency or shortages in governmental healthcare.
“When implemented, the COMPLETE LIVES SYSTEM produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest get chances that are attenuated…The COMPLETE LIVES SYSTEM justifies preference to younger people because of the priority to the worst off rather than instrumental value.”
Bluebird … not only kill granny but grandpa and their daughter’s baby.
How about another one of Obama’s most “trusted friends and advisor” and Regulatory Czar Cass Sustein. “I urge that the government should indeed focus on life-years rather than live. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people” Columbia Law Review, January 2004.
Why does the term “Eugenics” always seem to follow the “progressives”? Why should one human life be better than another?
This is why some people are turning up the heat. They are saying slow down. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, even when it is repugnant. I don’t agree with all of the people speaking out but they have a right.
Let’s say it passes and those multi-millionaire Republicans end up having to declare bankruptcy for those businesses that employ people and do cover 85% of the country. Will you feel bad for the workers who lose their jobs?
I am a right leaning person. I currently do not have a job. I worry about healthcare for my family. I also want a rational discussion. I do not want a one party decision on healthcare. I believe all sides need to sit at the table.
August 6, 2009 at 11:03 pm #674040
JanSParticipantoperative words, HMC, “rational discussion”…what these planted people are doing has nothing to do with rational OR discussion. I don’t give a damn what side it’s coming from…it’s not there to make people think, it’s just there to drown out the discussion !! Give thinking people a break here !!
August 6, 2009 at 11:05 pm #674041
JanSParticipantI’ve had a living will for nearly 15 years…nothing new about that. I get to decide..not them, not you. Scare tactics all…sigh…
August 6, 2009 at 11:39 pm #674042
bluebirdMemberDemocrats are not organized. That is one of their biggest problems. If they were, it would be the slam dunk you speak of. We don’t all caravan around the country to high-jack local events like these paid “mobs” are doing. Everyone would argue over where to get their latte and forget what the plan was.
“The first major opposition to something the left wants”? I think maybe you’ve been napping. In fact, that thought is so absurd, I don’t even know what to say.
Every one does have the right to be heard. And YES, on a rational discussion. Please tell me how paying people to shout over the speakers accomplishes either of those?
Please tell me how the government promoting living wills for more than 20 years, to no opposition, is suddenly an attempt to kill granny?
And last I checked, abortion is a legal medical procedure. Why shouldn’t your medical coverage pay for it? If you want to talk moral and ethical implications, that belongs in a different setting. Change the law. Some people don’t think birth control is moral, or Viagra. What about a breast implant after a mastectomy? Is that medically necessary or emotionally necessary? All kinds of things are subject to disagreement. A legal medical procedure is still just that.
But I’ll be sure and not have you pay for my abortion if I don’t have to pay for your steak eating cholesterol/clogged arteries/heart attack, and your erectile dysfunction/foot amputation/insulin injections from eating so much damn sugar that you now have diabetes.
I very much hope you have a good day too. Sorry to hear you are currently out of work. Hope that is very temporary and that your family stays in good health.
August 7, 2009 at 12:29 am #674043
AnnieParticipantHMC, you wrote that these groups are “too big to be organized.” I’d say that they are too big NOT to be organized. And yes, it’s great if groups of “non-democrats” want to participate or contribute. They do have the right to be heard. But so do others present who want to have a true discussion. I’m reminded of the saying that your right to free speech does not give you the right to cry “fire” in a crowd.
Most importantly, what about respect? I’m a teacher and if students who had questions or disagreed with me stood up and shouted in class, or carried signs of me with a noose around my neck, they’d be either in the principal’s office or out in the street in a heartbeat. Why do these folks deserve better? Even if they are not organized, how does it happen that so many rude, boorish, and mostly uninformed people “spontaneously” arrive at these town meetings?
I’ve not heard of the COMPLETE LIVES SYSTEM you brought up? Sources? What is it and where can information on it be found? I’ll go google.
Whatever it is, I read in an ARRP magazine recently that, contrary to popular belief, older people do not cost the most in health care. Many of them just get old and die with very little medical interference and what health care they require is largely for comfort and/or pain relief. The big ticket items are with young and middle aged people who have accidents, heart attacks, babies, cancer and the lifestyle illnesses. This seems counterintuitive to me, but who knows? They gave a percentage by age groups, but I’d have to hunt the article down.
I’m sorry to hear, too, that you lost your job. I hope you have health insurance from another source. When we were on COBRA, it cost $1026/month for the two of us. Quite an added expense when you’re out of work.
August 7, 2009 at 1:17 am #674044
KenParticipantThe headline is not quite accurate:
Rachel Maddow Exposes “Fake” Protesters At Health Care Town Halls”, but it does expose the corporate Professional PR flacks that get paid to spread lies to people like our own HMC rich.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl91YF1d3Kg
It’s a professional nationwide ad campaign paid for by the usual suspects.
The misguided idiots who show up at these events are often the same people who, because they listen to media wingnuts, not only repeat the lies, but in a recent show of hands at an event, did not realize that the same medicare they get help from, is a government run health care program.
When Rich brings up “eugenics” he is using a smear with a core of truth. The original “progressives” of the late 19th and very early twentieth century, did have some mangled ideas based on imperfect early genetic science mixed with racial superiority theory and charlatanism.
For a brief look at the many and varied threads generated by the evolution of the American “progressives” check wikipedia here:
http
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism_in_the_United_States
Note the number of progressive republicans involved in the early part of the century and the inexorable slide to the far right while shedding their thinkers and intellectuals.
August 7, 2009 at 1:38 am #674045
JoBParticipantsince when do unpaid political activists equate with paid political activists?
You seem to have no trouble indentifying ACORN political activists because they identify themselves…
as opposed to the paid political activists who are pretending to be nothing more than members of the community whose town halls they disrupt.
and i gotta ask…
in what fantasy world do democrats neglect their lives and show up at political protests en mass?
I am one of those democrats.. and i don’t think i have attended a protest of any kind in decades.. though i did show up for our primary caucuses. I would bet your better half hasn’t been out protesting either…
There is not magic … republican and democrat … them and us. We are all pretty much just people.
I know you hear that community organizers and grass roots organizations are some kind of socialist organizations… “I heard how much the left used community organizers and grass roots movements to get our current president elected.”
You do understand that community organizers organize people… ordinary everyday people.. don’t you?
and that the term grass roots refers to those ordinary people who may or may not form or engage in political organizations?
There is a great them and us divide.. the haves and have nots … that is the real them and us.
And they have you snookered into believing they have your best interests at heart.
As for the rest of the rant.. half truths filtered through half minds and repeated. Not worth the time to refute each distortion…
as for those formulas you mention that you think will be used to deny the very young and the very old care….
they are being used currently by your insurance company to grant and deny treatment at the physician level under the auspices of medically proven care…
It’s ironic that most of the charges that are currently being leveled at Health Reform by the lackeys of the insurance companies are pretty much standard practice for your insurance company.
Including the fact that without intervention medical costs are about to become the next mortgage fraud meltdown…
but hey.. there will be a lot of millionaires made…
too bad the saps who are buying the song and dance have more chance of winning the lottery than becoming one of them.
August 7, 2009 at 2:21 am #674046
TammiWSMemberWow. Seriously, there is so much going on now thats wrong in the country….why does EVERYTHING have to be politicized? I wish we could expect better but I guess not.
I was really enjoying the down time since the election.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/06/tampa-town-hall-on-health_n_253478.html
August 7, 2009 at 5:10 am #674047
AnnieParticipant“There is a great them and us divide.. the haves and have nots … that is the real them and us.”
JoB, you hit that nail right on the head. It’s not Democrats and Republicans or even conservative and liberal/progressive. It’s rich and poor. The really sad part is that the haves and using the have nots and they don’t even know they’re being duped. And they’re most likely the ones that will be hurt if they get what they ask for.
August 7, 2009 at 6:30 am #674048
kgParticipantIf anyone wants to pay me to do some protest work contact me through the boards. Thanks.
August 7, 2009 at 6:54 am #674049
WSBKeymasterI haven’t heard the word “eugenics” in a while but FWIW I did once upon a time interview a political candidate who was best known for espousing a full-on version of such views. He was William Shockley, brilliant inventor, who decided to run for US Senate in California in 1982 (GOP).
http://www.boston.com/globe/search/stories/nobel/1982/1982aj.html
There was quite the array of candidates in that campaign and I had to interview them all.
But that’s not why I parachuted into this thread. For those sincerely interested in the topic, I have just received word (will publish a separate on the home page either tonight or tomorrow morning) that Rep. Jim McDermott, who is a physician as well as Seattle’s longtime Congressmember, will speak about the health-care-reform situation at next Wednesday’s 34th District Democrats’ meeting. 7 pm, The Hall at Fauntleroy.
August 7, 2009 at 7:08 am #674050
KenParticipantSome hecklers might be amusing at that venue. Members of several unions and a couple dozen retired headknockers like me should be able to keep order.
There will probably be enough mental health professionals there to supply emergency treatment to the “special” republicans that would show up at a 34th district Democratic party meeting.
August 7, 2009 at 12:35 pm #674051
KenParticipantEither spam or a really distant connection with the language.
August 7, 2009 at 1:23 pm #674052
PatrickKeymasterSituation is under the hand. Removal immediate if must and seen to. Gratuity to those altertness sent.
August 7, 2009 at 3:40 pm #674053
KenParticipantThanks Patrick.
As a reward for your diligence and parody skillz,here is another entertaining Hunter rant at Daily KOS:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/7/762886/-Of-Birthers,-Senators-and-Morons
Excerpt:
It almost makes you want to cry. Between Cornyn, Grassley, Limbaugh and Beck, between Dobbs and Morris and Bolton, between birthers and “socialized” medicine but keep-your-hands-off-my-Medicare, the stupid is overwhelming. It’s become a tidal wave of stupid. It’s a giant Noah’s Ark of stupid, in which two examples of every kind of dumbassery known to man have been loaded up to be set adrift on a sea of their own drool. It’s the “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” gameshow of stupid — loud, with big flashing lights, and on every goddamn day of the week. It’s the result of drinking conservative bong water and eating the paint chips flaking off Bill Buckley’s lead-encrusted casket.
I’d be afraid for the future of our country, but I know that if these people ever actually armed themselves and tried to take over they’d all have accidentally shot themselves in the groin within the first ten minutes. Then they’d all limp to D.C. to hold a rally demanding free government healthcare for crotch-related injuries.
August 7, 2009 at 8:26 pm #674054
JoBParticipantTammiWS..
if you think there has been a lull in political posturing you haven’t been watching either FOX “news” or the Daily Show where i get my FOX reflection.
August 8, 2009 at 1:20 am #674055
dhgParticipantNews Flash: Sarah Palin has just facebooked her opposition to Obama’s Death Committees. These are the committees formed to decide who is going to die after health care reform is enacted. They want to kill Sarah’s baby!!!!!
So now that the right wing is certain we’re going to kill infants it is only a matter of time before they claim we have prepared recipes for eating them.
This is a very old playbook but usually used in war, not in civil discourse.
August 8, 2009 at 2:43 am #674056
JoBParticipantis there no end to her ignorance ???
August 8, 2009 at 3:29 am #674057
TammiWSMemberThanks Ken for the link…very good.
JOB, the lull has been mine – I’ve checked out from paying daily attention to political posturing, knowing it still is going on. Call it burnout from 2008.
Honestly I think all the news channels, esp. cable, posture. Its ratings. Fox, MSNBC, CNN – I just get too worked up to watch cable between 5-8 pm.
I watch John Stewart or Bill Mahar for my daily dose of humor.
Edit: Palins comments are right in line with the Hitler/Nazi rhetoric being spewed out today. Her full comment:
“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
Sounds similar to extermination of gays, gypies, Jews, mentally disabled…. Its just sick and offensive that the Right would stoop to this….of all things.
August 8, 2009 at 8:24 am #674058
RubyRed1MemberBluebird (and others): Please provide the proof that the people who are speaking out are “paid”.
Also, has anyone noticed that some of these protesters are Democrats who actually VOTED for Obama?
August 8, 2009 at 3:09 pm #674059
MagpieParticipantI don’t know if any of you watched Bill Moyer’s Journal when Wendell Potter was on. I would highly recommend looking him up on google to read what he has to say. This is a man who came from the inside and is now blowing the whistle on the tactics of the health care industry. You can make up your own mind, but I found him very compelling and some of the clips that were shown of the Health Care Execs testifying in front of Congress were mind blowing. This wasn’t Fox or MSNBC or CNN, but PBS and Bill Moyer’s. Here is the url to the show http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/profile.html if anyone is interested. He discusses tactics that he was in charge of to derail Hillary Clinton’s Health plan.
August 8, 2009 at 5:42 pm #674060
bluebirdMemberRubyRed1,
I can’t prove anything about the people speaking out. No one can even hear them. And those wishing to speak are indeed both democrats and republicans. Everyone rightfully has a lot of questions and should be heard. Too bad they won’t get a chance.
The people screaming and shouting are the ones who are encouraged, promoted, and organized by paid lobbyist on behalf of very wealthy conservatives. They are not grass root groups that came together miraculously. They are not organized by liberals either. To identify who they are being backed by, is not malice or slander, it’s factual.
I misspoke if I implied those in attendance are given money to stand there and yell. The people behind the protesters, are paid to rile and rally them into shutting down any meaningful dialogue.
These are supposed to be community townhall meetings, held by our elected representatives. Open to all. I have no objection to either a democrat or republican voicing disagreement. I take issue with a specific, orchestrated effort to drown out and disrupt what is meant to inform.
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