I went to the grocery store after work last night. No particular reason – just wanted to surround myself with ignorant, inconsiderate assholes and their screeching spawn. If I lived in Florida, I could have just gone to the Tampa Town Hall Meeting on Heath Care, which turned violent when “angry” protesters carrying racist signs whipped up to a frenzy by their leader, Glenn Beck, and the St. Pete’s Republican Party, started banging on things and getting into fights.
Had I been in St. Louis, I could have gone to the town hall meeting with Russ Carnahan. There, six people – including a Post-Dispatch reporter – were hauled off to the hoosegow.
I don’t know what these people are so “angry” about (and I’ll bet they’d be hard-pressed to articulate just what their problem is, too). If they’re afraid that the insurance companies won’t continue to make huge profits off the suffering of others, they ought to chill out. As Business Week reports, the fight for health care reform is over, and, not surprisingly, the insurance industry has won.
Mostly, I think they’re just terrified white folks, watching as the world changes around them. First a you-know-what gets elected President, and now a “wise Latina” is in charge of deciding their fate in the Supreme Court (though, don’t worry angry old white men, you’re still pretty well-represented on that front, and even the token schwarze is really on your side).
No matter how bad things get for even the trashiest of white folks, they’ve always been able to console themselves with the fact that they’re better than “those people.” Unfortunately (for them), that’s rapidly changing, and soon white people will no longer be better than anybody else. And not long after that, they’ll be in the minority. Now that’s scary.
But, hey, don’t worry angry white people. As far as health care reform goes, you’ve managed to teach “them people” a lesson, and have paved the way for insurance companies to make huge profits in the process. And that’s what it’s all about.
Just waiting for the nutjobs to break out the white sheets and hoods.
😯 i’m in idaho………
Sean, you certainly manage to visit some of the garden spots of the US. :rofl2:
The Obamas will be staying at Blue Heron Farm, on Marthas Vineyard. Our Heron should get an invite.
All this angry mob stuff and the birther crap makes me think about what the Rethugs did when Clinton was president. They add nothing to the debate, but they confuse and frighten people and infuse every issue with vicious misinformation. There is a reason that they make me nauseous.
Willy DeVille Passes
🙁 :gate:
Rep. Steve Kagen (D-WI) faced a “heated†discussion about health care at a town hall meeting yesterday, with people in the crowd who were heckling, interrupting, and filibustering him.
One vocal attendee was a woman named Heather Blish, who identified herself as “just a mom from a few blocks away†and “not affiliated with any political party.†When interviewed by the local NBC affiliate, Blish insisted she was not a member of the Republican Party. “I left the party,†she said. Blish’s statements, however, are distortions. From NBC’s report:
Her LinkedIn page shows something different. She was the vice chair of the Republican Party of Kewaunee County until last year. She worked on the John Gard campaign, who ran unsuccessfully against Kagen last year. And it says she’s a part of the Republican Party for Kagen’s district, as well as the Republican Party of Wisconsin, and the Republican National Committee.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/07/woman-mom-gop/
It sounds to me like they are instructed to not permit any discussion of factual information, opposing arguments, making any case for something they have been told not to like, or any rebuttal of their own arguments that are often specious and dishonest. Heckling, interrupting, filibustering and yelling are all part of their goon squad tactics to stifle the voices and message of their opponents. It’s OK because they are doing the Lord’s work fighting the good fight against O’Bama and the Progressives and their Nazism and Socialism and Marxism and Communism and Heathenism and their Minority-ness.
It is just a mirror of the stranglehold their side maintains over opposing opinion in the media via ownership and control that they are so scurred of losing.
God bless the USA and using “Democracy” and “Freedom of Speech” to shut off speech you don’t want anyone to hear.
Steven Pearlstein from the Washington Post:
As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don’t agree. Today, I’m going to step over that line.
The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they’ve given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They’ve become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/06/AR2009080603854.html
OK, so why is Mel Martinez quitting a year ahead of time? Is it Palinitis or something?
Based on the news that health care events are edging into violence, an anti-health care reform protester in New Mexico named Scott Oskay is calling on his hundreds of online followers to bring firearms to town halls, and to ‘badly hurt’ SEIU and ACORN counter protesters.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/anti-health-care-reform-protester-encourages-physical-violence-use-of-firearms.php
What a day. Work was brutal, except for my lunch date, which was fun but kept me from getting caught up on line. So it looks like I missed some stuff.
1) Sucks to hear about Willy DeVille. Vernon, thanks for posting that great thought-piece. I need to find a good compilation this weekend, because I know I will be missing those first two Mink DeVille albums of long ago.
2) Hoping to see some footage from the Battle of Tampa on MSNBC tonight. No, I wasn’t there. I miss all the good parties around here! 🙂
One of the local reporters was interviewing a protester last night on the news. He was trying to convince her that this was a local effort with no outside organizers, but when she asked him what he does for a living, he mentioned that he works for an insurance company. Nice try, Skeezix.
3) No idea what’s up with Mel Martinez, although as PJ stated, it does have a certain aroma of moose to it. I would be extremely shocked if bad behavior is involved, although since he’s a Republican I’m not entirely ruling it out.
Now the interesting part is guessing who Charlie Crist will appoint to fill the vacancy until the 2010 election. I don’t think Florida law specifically prohibits him from appointing himself, but it’s more likely he’ll tap a former legislator who will agree not to run in 2010 so as to keep his hands off Charlie’s seat. So to speak.
Jeez, these Republicans are such quitters.
Crist could appoint Foley, There’s no way he could run for re-election.
Crist says he won’t indulge in autoappointicism. Hopefully Katherine Harris has agreed to be a seat holder for 17 months.
From Sarah Palin:
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.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/07/palin-obamas-death-panel_n_254399.html
Re 7 and 11
I would think that the nastiness at these townhall meetings would turn people off rather than against health care reform. Like Palin’s rallies during the election.