Teabaggers Riot in Tampa

[DaShi]

Ogie and DD didn't realize.

[The Mad Monk]

Can he provide a specific example?

The same outlets that I've seen reporting on this: CNN, MSNBC; also reported, during the Bush years, when MoveOn.org would bus people in during Bush administration events and such

so I'm not really understanding how this is being unfairly covered... but if someone wants to provide me with an example, that's cool

Um...we had buses?

[Drake Tungsten]

It was obviously fake. Like, really obvious.

[Guynemer]

Yes, someone's sarcasm detector is on the fritz.

[chequita guevara]

Damn voters.

Yeah, but those specific voters are the losers.

[DinoDoc]

Yeah, but those specific voters are the losers.

The trends in polling for the House bill so far would tend to show that the lack of support for the plan the President is pushing is more widespread than you seem to think. Hell even the facts are against the plan as it stands now.

[chequita guevara]

That's because the plan is opposed from the left as well as the right. Only those Congressmen who are the whose of the insurance industry support this bill, because it's a giant public subsidy to them. Difference is, we aren't being organized by FOX news to attend meetings.

[chequita guevara]

BTW

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.

****

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/

[DinoDoc]

Difference is, we aren't being organized by FOX news to attend meetings.

You have SEIU to handle that. As an aside though, I haven't seen any real evidence to show that these protests have been ginned up by Fox or any other National organization. I have seen evidence refuting those claims though.

PS I thought you liked community organizing anyway.

[DinoDoc]

Regarding your article, I'm confused by one of the points it tries to make: The health-insurance industry is run by very smart and very greedy people who have sunk to a new low.

What Opposition? Health-Care Industry "Villains" Actually Support Reform

Health-care reform advocates have spent a fair bit of time complaining about the boisterous protests that have hit town-hall meetings across the country over the last week. Many of the complaints have suggested that the protests are illegitimate because they are industry funded. If I had to guess, I'd say that industry funding has probably played some role in some of the protests, but I'm not sure that necessarily delegitimizes them.

Moreover, if we're going to talk about industry support, I think it's worth looking at where major industry players stand with regard to reform. Democrats, meanwhile, have vilified industry—literally: Nancy Pelosi recently called health insurers "villains" and said that they're "immoral."

Funny, though, as Tim Carney points out, while the insurance industry is wary of a government-run public plan, which would serve as a competitor, it supports reform to the extent that it expands coverage and subsidies.

So the insurance industry, despite being labeled villains, is, for the most part, playing along. How about other major industry players? The drug industry, represented in Washington by PhRMA, came out in favor of reform. It cut a deal with the White House up front, promising to help reduce costs and make some drugs more affordable for seniors in exchange for protection from additional measures that might cut into its revenues. President Obama, who ran an ad attacking PhRMA head Billy Tauzin during his campaign, bragged about the deal, calling the industry's support "a turning point" on the road to reform. Doctors, meanwhile, represented by the AMA, have announced support for the House overhaul plan.

Deal-making is a fact of life in Washington, and knowing this, politically savvy reformers have openly sought to bring industry groups on board with their plans in hopes of avoiding the industry-funded opposition that helped tank the 1994 reform attempt. The point here, I think, is that no matter what Nancy Pelosi says about the supposed evils of the insurance industry or what harsh words Obama has for top drug industry representatives, Democrats have explicitly made major industry players partners in their legislative efforts, and industry has been basically happy to play along.

http://reason.com/blog/show/135307.html

Is the low he's claiming they have sunk to supporting the President's plan?

[chequita guevara]

Not really the same guy now, is it. I think a lot of people don't really understand where the opposition is coming from on the right. The insurance companies were resigned to some kind of reform, so they decided to get in on creating it, and wrote probably the best possible reform from their point of view, one that guarantees them hundreds of billions in subsidies, when what should be happening is they should be put out of the health care business altogether.

What's important to note in Schaeffer's piece isn't so much that the insurance industry is behind it. And, to be honest, they very well may be at the same time they are supporting it. If it sinks, they'll have another few decades to do what they want, if not, they're still sitting pretty. Plus, any foot in the door for government insurance could lead to single-payer down the road.

More importantly, however, is to note that professional lobbying groups, corporations, etc., are behind the mobilized resistance to the plan. There are disturbing similarities to real fascism in this movement (not the epithet screamed at right-wingers in general). I'd like to see both this health care plan and the right-wingers opposed to the plan defeated.

You "conservatives" are playing with fire.

[DaShi]

@DD article. Classic! "The protests are probably industry funded, but that's OK. Reason: rag on democrats"

[DinoDoc]

More importantly, however, is to note that professional lobbying groups, corporations, etc., are behind the mobilized resistance to the plan.

This claim smacks of desperation on the part of people who can't defend the plan.

[Zkribbler]

Read post 11 for an incident of union violence.

I read Post 11. It's about a black guy who was attacked by a black guy who used racial slurs. The word "union" appears nowhere in the post, nor is it implied. Here it is:

Kenneth Gladney, 38, a conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with "Don't tread on me" printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room at St. John's Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was awaiting treatment for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack.

"It just seems there's no freedom of speech without being attacked," he said.

Members of the local Tea Party Coalition, a movement that has emerged to counter Obama's policies, had urged their members to attend Carnahan's forum, which in turn spurred Democrats to establish a strong presence.

[DinoDoc]

I read Post 11. It's about a black guy who was attacked by a black guy who used racial slurs. The word "union" appears nowhere in the post, nor is it implied. Here it is:

The people who attacked the black guy were SEIU members, Zk.